'A  - 


V. 


• »  c. 


The 

MEXICAN  CRISIS 

Its 

CAUSES  and  CONSEQUENCES 

BY 

Rev.  Michael  Kenny,  SJ. 


Price  Ten  Cents 


International  Catholic  Truth  Society 

407  Bergen  Street 
Brooklyn,  New  York 


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TRUTH 

(The  Official  Organ  of  the  I.  C.  T.  S.) 

Rt.  Rev.  Msgi*.  William  F.  McGinnis,  D.D.,  LiIi.D., 

Editor 

ASSOCIATE  EDITORS: 

Rev.  F.  Joseph  Kelly ,Ph.  D. 

Rev.  Lucian  Johnston,  S.T.L. 

The  Mission  of  TRUTH  is  to  champion  our  Holy  Faith, 
to  defend  the  Church,  to  refute  calumnies,  to  answer  bigots, 
to  indicate  the  cause  of  Catholics,  to  stand  for  the  safety 
of  home  and  country,  to  disseminate  the  truth  concerning 
the  doctrines,  history  and  practices  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
and  to  tell  you  about  the  triumphs  and  the  persecutions  of 
Catholicity  in  every  country  and  clime. 

TRUTH 

Is  mailed  monthly  to  all  Life  and  Regular  Members 
of  the  I.  C.  T.  S. 


INTRODUCTORY 


Written  by  request  of  the  editor  of  Studies,  the  Dub¬ 
lin  Quarterly  Review,  this  presentment  of  the  conditions 
and  origins  of  the  present  Mexican  crisis  was  deemed  by 
eminent  authorities  to  whom  it  was  submitted  of  such  im¬ 
mediate  and  permanent  value  as- “a  poignant  compendium 
of  Mexico’s  story  and  of  its  United  States  relations  to  the 
present  hour,”  that  they  urged  its  publication  for  Amer¬ 
ican  readers.  Revised  under  the  direction  of  Bishop 
Pascual  Diaz,  the  distinguished  Executive  of  the  Mex¬ 
ican  Episcopate  who  is  now  in  exile  for  his  worth  and 
services,  the  “Mercier  of  Mexico”  has  honored  this  ar¬ 
ticle  with  his  unqualified  endorsement : 

“Hago  enteramento  mio  el  articulo  de  P.  Kenny  sobre 
la  situacion  de  Mejico. 

■E  Pascual, 

Obispo  de  'FabascoS' 

“I  make  Fr.  Kenny’s  article  on  the  Mexican  situation 
entirely  my  own.” 

We  are  confident  that  our  readers  will  also  make  it 
theirs. — International  Catholic  Truth  Society. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2018  with  funding  from 
Columbia  University  Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/mexicancrisisits00kenn_1 


THE  MEXICAN  CRISIS:  ITS  CAUSES  AND 
CONSEQUENCES 

When  Plutarco  Elias  Calles,  styled  Constitutional 
President  of  Mexico,  proclaimed  July  2,  1926,  that  the 
“laws”  he  had  recently  decreed,  confiscating  to  the  state 
all  churches  and  religious  schools  and  institutions  and 
all  properties  thereof  and  stripping  all  ministers  of  relig¬ 
ion  of  every  vestige  of  personal  rights,  would,  on  and 
after  August  1,  be  rigidly  enforced,  the  Bishops  of  Mexi¬ 
co  replied  by  ordering  the  suspension  from  that  date 
of  all  church  services  and  public  sacerdotal  functions.  In 
the  light  of  the  immediate  consequences  of  these  acts  the 
true  inwardness  of  the  whole  Mexican  situation  is  dis¬ 
closed. 

Thousands  of  petitions  against  these  laws,  with  mil¬ 
lions  of  signatures,  began  to  roll  in ;  but  the  petitions  to 
the  Lord  of  Law  were  more  visibly  impressive.  The 
churches  in  town  and  country  were  crowded  during  the 
two  weeks  preceding  the  fateful  day,  and  thousands 
were  seen  kneeling  in  the  streets  and  spaces  around  the 
churches,  while  the  priests  and  Bishops  were  engaged 
administering  the  Sacraments  from  dawn  till  dawn.  This 
manifestation  of  Catholic  Faith  and  loyalty  was  so  ve¬ 
hemently  sincere  and  universal  among  every  class  and 
calling,  despite  the  risk  of  life  and  civil  persecution, 
that  the  American  pressmen  who  reported  it  to  their  not 
too  sympathetic  journals  caught  for  the  while  the  con¬ 
tagion  of  its  enthusiasm. 

Calles  and  his  clique,  the  autocrats  of  this  strange  Re¬ 
public,  staged  a  counter  demonstration.  They  control  and 
are  partly  controlled  by  the  organization  primarily  titled 
Casa  Del  Obrero  Mundial,  known  in  America  as  the  In¬ 
ternational  Workers  of  the  World  or  1.  W.  W. ;  but 
because  this  communistic  society  is  in  bad  odor  with  the 
American  public,  who  nickname  it  “I  Won’t  Work”,  its 
Mexican  counterpart  now  styles  itself  the  Regional  Con¬ 
federation  of  Mexican  Workers,  initialed  C.  R.  O.  M., 


4 


and  commonly  called  the  Crom.  There  are  some  600,000 
enrolled,  and  though  most  of  them  are  ignorant  of  the 
Crom’s  anti-Christian  tenets,  its  state-backed  tyranny 
over  their  jobs  makes  their  subjection  ordinarily  abso¬ 
lute.  President  Calles  ordered  a  monster  Labor  Parade 
in  Mexico  City  on  August  1,  and  announced  that  200,000 
marching  workers  would  give  the  lie  to  the  Catholic 
claims,  and  broadcast  to  the  world  that  his  decrees  were 
the  mind  of  Mexico.  With  the  ne’er-do-wells  and  place¬ 
hunting  rifif-raff  crowding  into  Mexico  City  under  his 
friendly  patronage,  and  his  railroads  free  to  the  workers, 
and  these  under  warning  that  absence  would  forfeit  them 
their  jobs,  his  estimate  seemed  no  idle  boast. 

Reliable  witnesses  reckoned  the  straggling  paraders  at 
less  than  10,000,  including  some  3,000  soldiers  utilized  to 
swell  their  ranks ;  and  they  marched  through  empty  and 
silent  streets.  The  640,000  population  of  Mexico  City 
was  largely  augmented  by  the  crowds  who  gathered  from 
the  country  for  the  last  day  of  worship  at  the  national 
shrine  of  Guadalupe ;  but  there  was  none  to  greet  the 
Crom  parade.  Sidewalks  were  deserted,  windows  were 
shuttered,  and  even  the  paraders’  demeanor  looked  sul¬ 
len  or  listless  to  the  reporters.  It  seemed  rather  a  fun¬ 
eral  march. 

Both  demonstrations  brought  into  striking  relief  the 
total  estrangement  of  the  people  of  Mexico  in  sympathy 
and  principle  from  the  powers  that  ruled  them  with  a  rod 
of  iron  in  the  name  of  a  republic.  There  is  other  and 
ampler  demonstration  of  their  bitter  hostility  to  this  clique 
and  their  loathing  of  its  laws.  Why,  then,  citizens  of  a 
democracy  will  ask,  do  they  put  it  or  keep  it  in  power? 
The  answer  is,  they  do  not.  Why  they  do  not  is  a  long 
and  complex  story,  but  its  salient  outlines  can  be  sim¬ 
plified. 


5 


Contrasts  in  Culture  and  Outlook 

In  the  first  place  Mexico  is  fundamentally  an  Indian 
nation.  Of  its  population,  which  rose  from  12,491,670 
in  1895  to  15,112,()08  in  1910,  declined  to  14,234,779  in 
1920  and  is  estimated  to  have  fallen  over  half  a  million 
since,  only  about  two  and  a  half  millions  or  18  per  cent 
are  rated  white ;  and  not  necessarily  pure  white,  for  un¬ 
like  in  the  United  States  where  the  slightest  tinge  of 
negro  blood  classes  the  tinged  as  negro,  a  strain  of  In¬ 
dian  blood  in  Mexicans  of  mainly  foreign  extraction  is 
no  bar  to  white  classification.  The  remaining  82  per  cent, 
exclusive  of  some  80,000  negroes,  is  made  up  of  about 
35  per  cent  Indian  and  47  per  cent  mixed.  These  Mes¬ 
tizos,  of  half  or  more  than  half  Indian  blood,  are  classed 
as  Indians  and  usually  share  their  habits  and  character¬ 
istics.  Hence  Mexico  is  predominantly  Indian  in  num¬ 
bers  and  traditions ;  has  in  fact  four  times  more  Indians 
than  Cortes  found  there,  and  relatively  about  as  much 
Indian  blood  as  obtained  at  his  departure,  (cf.  Encylc., 
Cath.,  Intern.,  Britannica :  Alexico.) 

Spanish  civilization,  in  preserving  the  Indian,  did  not 
make  him  white  or  European ;  but  it  did  make  him 
Christian.  It  did  not  nor  could  it  mould  him  to  the 
ways  and  precepts  of  the  Roman  civil  code,  but  it  did 
remould  him  in  the  faith  and  code  of  Catholic  Rome ;  and 
it  preserved  him  in  that  mould.  It  kept  the  Indian  in 
Mexico  with  his  radical  Indian  traits  and  un-European 
outlook ;  and  it  made  him  and  kept  him  a  good  Indian. 
On  the  principle  actuating  State  as  well  as  Church,  that 
the  Indian’s  soul  was  good  and  the  living  Indian  capable 
of  good,  it  kept  him  living  and  it  made  him  good. 

Across  the  northern  border  of  1,833  miles  flourishes 
a  great  nation  of  a  radically  dififerent  civilization.  The 
present  United  States  territory  is  six  times  the  area  of 
Mexico,  and  its  Indian  aborigines  were  proportionately 
numerous  when  Puritanism  first  pilgrimaged  to  Plymouth 


6 


Rock.  Our  population  has  grown  to  115,000,000  while 
the  Indian  has  dwindled  to  342,406,  less  than  half  of  one 
per  cent.  As  in  Mexico,  the  Catholic  missionaries  toiled, 
taught,  suffered  and  died  through  all  this  land  from  sea 
to  sea,  to  keep  the  Indian  in  Christian  life ;  but  their  work 
was  thwarted,  undermined  and  nullified  by  a  driving  prin¬ 
ciple  of  the  prevalent  civilization,  the  antithesis  of  that 
in  Mexico.  This  compelling,  if  unconscious  principle  or 
rule  of  action,  that  races  which  obstruct  or  will  not  fit 
into  Anglo-Saxon  progress  are  unfit  to  live  and  survival 
is  to  the  fittest  therefor,  has  been  crystallized  in  the 
phrase,  “a  good  Indian  is  a  dead  Indian.”  So,  by  chicane 
and  force  and  alcohol  and  disease  and  economic  pressure 
the  Indian  was  made  good  in  that  sense.  Hence  we  have 
no  Indian  problem,  having  killed  it  off;  and,  thereby  our 
people  as  a  whole  are  temperamentally  incompetent  to 
value  a  civilization  that  preserved  the  Indian  or  to  ap¬ 
praise  understandingly  the  problems  incident  thereto. 
Mexico,  however,  has  other  things  of  enthralling  interest 
to  our  promoters  of  material  progress.  It  is  rich  in 
gold  and  silver  and  copper  and  other  minerals  and  in 
limitless  petroleum,  with  their  kindred  sources  of  ag¬ 
grandizement  ;  and  these  attract  American  and  other  ex¬ 
ploiters  to  Mexico,  involving  them,  and  their  governments 
along  with  them,  in  problems  which  they  are  traditionally 
unfitted  to  appreciate  or  solve.  These  neighboring  con¬ 
ditions  have  had  weighty,  perhaps  dominant,  influence  in 
evolving  the  present  crisis ;  but  its  roots  go  further  back. 

How  the  Indian  Was  Saved  and  Civilized 

When  the  Spaniards  entered  Mexico  the  sacrifices  of 
human  beings  on  its  altars,. with  cannibal  accompaniments, 
were  said  to  average  some  20,000  yearly ;  and  at  the  in¬ 
auguration  of  an  Aztec  King  from  20,000  to  50,000  vic¬ 
tims  were  slaughtered  in  one  holocaust.  The  Aztecs  and 
Mayas  of  the  ruling  class  retained  slight  vestiges  of  re- 


markable  earlier  civilizations ;  but  though  some  notions 
of  the  true  God  were  transmitted,  with  traditions  that  a 
white  man  from  the  East  had  set  up  His  Cross  and 
preached  His  doctrine  and  promised  that  other  white  vis- 
itors  would  renew  it,  a  degrading  polytheism  of  human 
sacrifice  was  the  universal  practice,  and  the  tribes  gen¬ 
erally,  three-fourth  of  whom  the  Aztec  conquests  had  not 
reached,  lived  in  a  state  of  warring  nomadic  savagery. 

That  the  dominant  motive  of  the  conquerors  was,  as 
they  declared,  the  spread  of  Christ’s  Gospel,  is  confirmed 
by  the  fact  that  such  a  people  were,  under  Spanish  hands 
and  rule,  transformed  into  devoted  Christians  and  multi¬ 
plied  in  the  process.  Nbt  a  few  of  the  conquerors  and 
their  successors  were  also  dominated  by  motives  of  ag¬ 
grandizement  and,  like  the  N'orth  American  colonists,  re¬ 
garded  the  Indian  as  an  inferior  species  devoid  of  Chris¬ 
tian  rights ;  but  with  this  radical  difference,  that  in  Mex¬ 
ico  such  views  were  anathematized  by  Church  and  State, 
and  the  natural  rights  and  essential  equality  of  the  na¬ 
tives  proclaimed  and  enforced.  The  Will  of  Isabella, 
confirmed  by  Papal  decrees,  that  the  Indian  be  treated  as 
a  freeman  and  spiritual  equal,  continued  to  dominate  the 
civil  policy  of  Spain,  however  imperfectly  some  adminis¬ 
trators  executed  it ;  and  nowhere  as  consistently  as  in 
Mexico. 

Most  minute  and  definite  directions  to  governors  and 
administrators  were  enjoined  and  peremptorily  reiterated 
by  the  crown  to  protect  and,  in  cooperation  with  the 
Church  and  its  missionaries,  to  Christianize  and  civilize 
the  natives ;  and  the  royal  ear  was  ever  open  to  the  indig¬ 
nant  protests  of  Las  Casas  and  a  long  line  of  others  just 
as  vehement  against  abuse.  It  is  from  the  records  of  such 
protests  that  defamers  of  the  Mexican  Church  frame 
their  accusations,  somewhat  like  those  critics  of  Aquinas 
who  take  the  objections  he  appends  to  his  propositions 
as  expression  of  his  views ;  whereas  the  dual  records,  of 


8 


rule  and  remedy  as  well  as  exception  and  protest,  bear 
historic  witness  that  lofty  motives  and  benevolent  prac¬ 
tices  in  treatment  of  the  Indians  by  Church  and  State 
were  the  prevalent  rule  and  abuse  was  the  exception. 

Even  among  the  Conquistadores  this  rule  prevailed. 
Nunez  de  Guzman  was  cruel  and  avaricious  and  was 
punished  for  it ;  but  Cortes,  who  would  have  perilled  the 
success  of  his  enterprise  to  stop  human  sacrifices  but  for 
Fr.  Olmedo’s  prudent  dissuasion,  set  a  precedent  in  his 
initial  settlement  for  kindly  justice  with  Christian  en¬ 
lightenment  to  the  Indian ;  and  many  of  his  fierce  war¬ 
riors  exchanged  their  armor  for  Cord  and  cassock  to 
become  equally  valiant  soldiers  of  Christ  in  evangelizing 
the  subjects  of  their  conquest.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  his¬ 
tory  of  Christendom  presents  such  another  heroic  line 
as  the  Missionaries  of  IMexico.  They  brought  the  in¬ 
domitable  valor  and  endurance  of  the  Conquistadores  to 
this  more  glorious  and  enduring  conquest. 

Schools  and  Scholars  and  Missionary  Marvels 

The  Chaplains  of  the  conquerors  were  struggling  with 
the  dozen  languages  and  hundred  dialects  of  Mexico, 
when  three  Flemish  and  twelve  Spanish  Franciscans  for¬ 
mally  commenced  that  conquest  in  1524.  They  were  wel¬ 
comed  by  Cortez  who  knelt  with  his  captains  to  kiss  the 
feet  of  the  poor  ill-clad  friars  in  view  of  the  populace, 
and  gladly  lent  them  his  prestige  and  power.  It  was 
they  who  made  that  power  endure,  for  it  was  they  and 
their  successors  who  won  the  hearts  of  the  natives.  The 
Mexicans  called  them  “Motolinia”,  poorest  of  the  poor; 
and  their  lives  made  that  title  so  adhesive  that  one  of 
them,  their  future  provincial,  who  founded  churches, 
schools,  missions  and  towns  from  Nicaragua  to  the  north¬ 
ern  limits,  baptized  400,000  with  his  own  hand,  and  alone 
held  whole  districts  in  civil  as  well  as  spiritual  obedience, 
is  known  in  historv  as  Frav  Motolinia.  Another  whose 


9 


work  was  typical  of  their  general  procedure  was  Brother 
Peter  of  Ghent,  kinsman  of  the  Emperor  Charles  V. 
This  princely  lay-brother  built  numerous  churches  and 
hospitals,  and  soon  had  over  a  thousand  natives  in  his 
primary  school ;  which  he  gradually  developed  into  a  col¬ 
lege  for  higher  studies,  a  training  school  for  teachers,  an 
academy  of  arts  and  crafts,  and  a  general  civilizing  cen¬ 
ter  whence  native  teachers  and  officials  went  forth  to  co¬ 
operate  with  the  Franciscans  and  other  Missionaries  in 
bringing  the  principles  and  arts  of  Christian  civilization 
to  the  tribes  of  Mexico  in  their  native  tongue. 

Such  schools  were  established  in  each  new  centre  for 
boys,  for  girls,  and  for  adults,  and  averaged  from  800 
to  1,000  in  attendance.  Fray  Zumarraga,  first  Bishop 
of  Mexico,  founded  nine  schools  for  Indian  girls  and  an 
asylum  where  half-castes  were  trained  and  provided  for 
reputable  marriage.  In  1544  he  had  catechisms,  school- 
texts  and  the  Bible  translated  into  Indian  “for,”  he  wrote, 
“there  are  so  many  who  know  how  to  read and  he  es¬ 
tablished  a  printing  press,  the  first  in  the  new  world, 
which  became  actively  productive  of  translations,  copies 
and  original  works.  His  famous  Santa  Cruz  College, 
founded  in  1534,  for  Indians,  and  San  Juan  de  Letran  for 
Mestizos,  which,  besides  Latin  and  Philosophy,  had  chairs 
of  music  and  of  Mexican  medicine  and  languages,  sent 
forth  native  mayors,  governors  and  teachers  whose 
knowledge  of  the  languages  and  habits  of  their  people 
greatly  expedited  the  missionaries’  progress. 

Meanwhile  other  religious  orders,  Jesuits,  Benedic¬ 
tines,  Dominicans,  Augu.stinians,  assisted  by  numerous 
sisterhoods,  were  busily  pursuing  the  same  plan  of  com¬ 
bining  secular  with  religious  instruction.  The  Augus- 
tinians  founded  the  great  San  Pablo  College,  and  the 
Jesuits  San  Ildefonso,  for  Spaniards  and  Creoles;  and  in 
1553  was  opened  the  University  of  Mexico,  with  all  the 
faculties  and  privileges  of  Salamanca,  including  Ai'ts  and 


10 


Science,  philosophy,  theology,  law,  medicine  and  Indian 
languages.  It  was  open  to  all  irrespective  of  race,  and 
in  the  theological  department  which  trained  a  native 
priesthood,  mastery  of  an  Indian  language  was  required 
for  graduation.  This,  the  first  University  in  America, 
which  soon  ranked  in  repute  with  Salamanca  and  had  in 
fact  a  wider  and  more  practical  range,  produced,  with 
its  supporting  institutions,  a  series  of  native  poets,  dram¬ 
atists,  historians,  jurists,  scientists,  theologians  and  even 
journalists  from  the  sixteenth  to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  which  the  contemporary  Spanish  output  did  not 
notably  excel,  and  the  British  Colonies  had  no  output 
to  compare  with. 

It  is  significant  that  the  most  notable  poet  of  the  sev¬ 
enteenth  century,  glorified  in  Spain  as  “the  tenth  Muse”, 
Inez  de  la  Cruz,  was  a  M'estiza  Nun  ;  and  the  nuns  of 
various  orders,  at  first  from  Spain,  but  soon  of  native 
origin,  everywhere  sustained  and  supplemented  the  mis¬ 
sionaries’  efforts  in  conducting  schools,  hospitals,  asy¬ 
lums  and  every  variety  of  social  and  institutional  service. 
It  is  also  significant  that  the  great  University  has  been 
suppressed  or  degraded  for  a  century  by  the  revolution¬ 
ary  regimes,  and  though  the  countless  buildings  of  edu¬ 
cation  and  benevolence  still  strew  the  land,  distinguish¬ 
able  by  their  architectural  and  esthetic  beauty,  they  are 
all  profaned  today,  having  long  ago  been  wrested  by 
vandal  governments  from  the  Church  that  built  them 
and  the  uses  of  culture  and  benevolence  they  fostered. 
But  priests  and  nuns  of  native  blood  remain,  rendered 
more  conspicuously  true  to  the  same  purposes  by  perse¬ 
cution  and  disgrace. 

Instruction  of  the  many  tribes  outside  the  narrow 
limits  of  the  early  conquest  followed  at  first  their  reduc¬ 
tion  by  military  expeditions,  with  Cross  and  sword  con¬ 
joined.  Soon,  however,  the  Jesuits  adventured  with  Cross 
alone  to  the  still  unsubdued  savages  of  northern  Mexico 


11 


and  California,  territory  won  to  Christ  and  Spain  by 
Fathers  Salvatierra  and  Kino  and  their  comrades.  Close 
to  three  score  martyrs,  as  heroic  as  their  now  beatified 
contemporaries  of  New  York  and  Canada,  were  mutilated 
and  slain  in  that  long  emprise ;  but  others  bravely  re¬ 
placed  them  till  by  the  Cross  alone  the  natives  were  sub¬ 
dued  to  Christ.  In  holy  rivalry  the  Franciscans  also  went 
northwards  without  military  escort,  to  the  east  of  the 
Jesuit  territory,  and  with  like  result,  victory  by  martyr¬ 
dom.  In  1G80  twenty-one  of  their  brethren  were  slain 
in  New  Mexico  in  one  day ;  but  they  also  kept  bravely 
on,  and  when  in  1767  the  Jesuits  were  expelled,  the  Fran¬ 
ciscans  worthily  took  up  their  work  and  toiled  unaided  to 
keep  the  tribes  intact  and  Christian.  These  tribes  are 
now  extinct ;  but  the  mission  buildings  from  San  Antonio 
to  San  Francisco,  erected  by  the  Indians  whom  these 
missionaries  transformed  into  artisans  and  artists,  are 
visited  by  admiring  tourists  who  marvel  at  the  solidity 
and  fineness  of  their  workmanship ;  and  their  architec¬ 
ture  is  copied  widely  through  the  States.  Yet  the  con¬ 
trasts  they  present  between  the  civilization  that  so  trans¬ 
formed  the  Indian  and  preserved  him  and  the  civilization 
that  extinguished  hfm,  is  seldom  noticed,  and  its  lesson  is 
ignored. 

Help  and  Hindrance  of  Royal  Absolutism 

The  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits  and  the  confiscation  of 
their  mission  properties  had  a  doubly  sinister  significance. 
Besides  the  disastrous  suppression  of  the  most  extensive 
and  practical  Indian  mission  work  and  of  the  most  en¬ 
lightening  and  morally  directive  institutions  for  the  edu¬ 
cation  and  moulding  of  the  governing  classes,  it  voiced 
the  echo  in  Mexico  of  the  then  moral  and  religious  de¬ 
cadence  in  Spain ;  and  in  extending  the  exercise  of  royal 
absolutism  it  set  a  ])recedent  for  similar  and  wider  usurp¬ 
ation  in  the  future.  Already  there  was  little  in  any 


12 


department  of  state  that  the  King  had  not  been  wont  to 
direct  and  control  personally  or  by  his  appointees.  This 
absolutism,  impeding  native  training  to  responsibility,  be¬ 
queathed  a  civil  inheritance  which  the  strongest  were  to 
seize,  in  its  power  without  its  principles,  and  to  make 
tyrannically  absolute  when  they  misnamed  it  a  republic. 

The  King’s  equally  absolute  ecclesiastical  control 
proved  even  more  disastrous  in  its  consequences.  He 
appointed  Bishops,  prelates,  abbots,  holders  of  benefices, 
and  assigned  the  limits  of  dioceses  and  missions.  No 
churches,  monasteries  nor  religious  foundations  could 
be  erected  nor  order  nor  congregation  introduced  with¬ 
out  his  seal ;  and  he  could  translate  or  suppress  them  at 
his  pleasure.  True,  his  appointments  were  usually  ju¬ 
dicious,  and  though  nothing  could  be  initiated  without 
obtaining  his  consent  through  a  complex  series  of  inter¬ 
mediaries,  when  the  labyrinthine  red  tape  was  unwound 
the  King’s  all  powerful  support  for  every  worthy  enter¬ 
prise  accompanied  his  sanction.  In  1557  Charles  V  set 
his  seal  to  the  proclamation  of  Viceroy  Velasco:  “The 
liberty  of  the  Indian  is  more  important  than  mines,  and 
their  revenues  are  not  so  valuable  that  all  divine  and  hu¬ 
man  laws  should  be  sacrificed  to  obtain  them;”  and  Fer¬ 
dinand  VFs  instruction  to  Viceroy  Amdrillas  is  typical 
of  the  long  line  of  royal  directions : 

“See  that  the  Bishops  and  the  secular  and  religious 
clergy  receive  all  the  support  they  need  from  the  civil 
courts  to- uproot  idolatry;  that  those  having  Indian,  negro 
or  mulatto  servants  send  them  daily  to  the  Christian  doc¬ 
trine  classes,  and  that  field  workers  be  given  the  same 
opportunity  on  Sundays  and  other  days  of  precept,  and 
be  not  otherwise  occupied  until  they  have  learned  the 
catechism,  and  let  those  who  do  not  comply  be  fined.  All 
priests  working  among  the  Indians  should  study  and 
know  their  languages.  The  condition  of  the  Indians  in 
all  New  Spain  should  be  investigated  to  see  if  they  are 


13 


oppressed  by  those  who  have  a  duty  to  teach  them  ;  and 
should  such  conditions  exist,  they  shall  be  reported  to  the 
bishop,  that  with  his  help  measures  be  taken  to  eradicate 
the  evil.” 

To  the  execution  of  such  policies  the  Kings  contrib¬ 
uted  generously,  but  mainly  from  the  tithe  funds  of  the 
church ;  for  even  the  church  tithes  belonged  to  the 
Crown.  These,  however,  and  other  revenues  the  Span¬ 
ish  Kings  allocated  freely  to  every  kind  of  missionary  and 
religious  work,  and  have  thus  to  their  credit  the  multi¬ 
tude  of  hospitals  and  asylums,  churches,  convents,  col¬ 
leges  and  schools  erected  in  their  day,  though  private  ben¬ 
efactors  supplemented  the  royal  grants,  and  in  later  years 
altogether  replaced  them.  Hence  it  is  clear,  that,  far 
from  acquiring  great  wealth  and  absolute  power  under 
the  Spanish  regime,  the  Church  never  possessed  either, 
though  by  a  King’s  good  will  and  intent  she  utilized  as 
much  of  both  as  a  kindly  master  judged  helpful  for  her 
functioning.  Prelates  occasionally  served  as  viceroys 
and  governors,  and  conspicuously  for  the  common  good ; 
but  this  in  no  way  loosened  the  King’s  universal  grasp. 
The  Church  was  virtually  the  slave,  if  a  favored  slave, 
of  a  benevolent  despot ;  and  when  the  despot  that  replaced 
him  waxed  malevolent  the  Church  became  a  slave  indeed. 

The  fact  that  Mexico  had  no  serious  revolt  for  two 
centuries  and  was ‘the  last  of  the  Spanish  colonies  to  de¬ 
mand  independence,  and  then  as  a  monarchy  under  a 
Spanish  King,  would  disprove  the  charges  of  govern¬ 
mental  cruelty.  Fray  Motolinia,  the  beloved  apostle  of 
the  Indians,  branded  the  accusations  of  Las  Casas  as 
grossly  exaggerated  and  his  proposed  reforms  as  injuri¬ 
ous  and  impractical;  and  the  Franciscan  Provincial  had 
had  a  longer,  wider  and  more  successful  experience  than 
the  Bishop  of  Chiapas.  Abuses  there  were  by  occasional 
corrupt  administrators,  and  by  the  unprincipled  adven¬ 
turers,  not  all  of  them  laymen,  that  plague  every  pioneer 


14 


country ;  but  against  them,  as  the  Spanish  archives  show, 
there  was  always  an  outcry  and  a  remedy.  When  Mar¬ 
quez  de  Gelvez  abused  his  viceroyalty  to  create  for  him¬ 
self  a  monopoly  of  the  corn  product  of  l(P2d,  and  so 
made  an  Indian  famine  imminent,  Archbishop  de  la  Serna 
took  the  lead  of  his  starving  people,  and  when  other 
measures  failed,  secured  redress  by  excommunication 
and  interdict.  This  action,  which  soon  removed  both  the 
“corner”  and  the  Viceroy,  is  significant  in  view  of  the 
similar  procedure  of  the  present  M'exican  Episcopate  and 
the  people’s  equally  vigorous  response.  It  represents  the 
general  attitude  of  the  clergy  in  exercising  what  influence 
they  held  in  favor  of  their  people,  especially  the  native 
races,  and  it  accounts  for  the  people’s  unswerving  loy¬ 
alty  to  them. 

From  the  time  of  Charles  III  the  religious  and  ad¬ 
ministrative  laxity  of  Spain  was  reflected  in  her  colonies, 
tending  to  license  rather  than  restraint.  With  the  ex¬ 
pulsion  of  the  Jesuits  in  1767,  the  numerous  and  flour¬ 
ishing  Indian  villages  and  townships  of  northwestern 
Mexico,  in  which  they  had  established  municipal  gov¬ 
ernment  on  the  Spanish  plan  with  central  church  and 
self-supporting  trades  and  tillage,  and  other  native  com¬ 
munities  similarly  formed  and  cultured  by  various  mis¬ 
sionary  bodies,  received  no  longer  the  watchful  care  and 
intensive  training  that  had  been  rapidly  lifting  them  to¬ 
ward  a  self-sustaining  civilization.  The  schools  in  which 
the  Indian  children  were  sedulously  taught  became  ne¬ 
glected,  and  when  the  anarchic  regimes  that  subverted  the 
Spanish  system  shut  out  the  priest  from  the  school,  sel¬ 
dom  providing  any  to  replace  him,  reading  and  writing 
became  a  lost  art,  and  farming  and  building  a  primitive 
procedure.  This  accounts  for  iMexico’s  present  illiteracy 
and  industrial  decay. 

The  exactions  of  Spain  for  home  defence  during  the 
h'rench  revolutionary  period  created  wide  discontent,  and 


15 


her  seizure  (;f  the  funds  and  revenues  of  the  ( dhras  Pias 
caused  further  economic  disruption.  These  funds,  donat¬ 
ed  for  religious  purposes,  were  invested  in  5  per  cent 
loans  on  convenient  terms  to  small  farmers,  the  interest 
supporting  charitable  and  educational  works.  \'on  Plum- 
boldt,  who  wrote  in  181U  that  the  schools  and  colleges  and 
various  benevolent  institutions  of  Mexico  were  in  num¬ 
ber  and  character  far  in  advance  of  the  United  States 
of  that  period,  estimated  the  Obras  Pias  at  $-15,000,000. 
Though  their  confiscation,  in  disorganizing  education  and 
agriculture  and  charitable  works,  deeply  aggrieved  the 
entire  people,  yet  so  attached  were  they  to  Spain  that 
when  Charles  Ponaparte  usurped  the  Spanish  throne,  a 
representative  iMexican  junta  proclaimed  Ferdinand  VII 
their  King  even  against  his  own  renunciation,  and  sent 
seven  million  dollars  to  support  him.  Despite  the  op¬ 
position  of  the  Napoleonic  “liberal'’  propagandists  and 
the  greedy  Spanish  adventurers  and  officials,  called  by 
the  natives  “Cauchupines”,  the  Creoles  and  Indians  stood 
by  their  King;  and  when  the  priests  Hidalgo  and  Morelos 
led  an  ill-timed  revolt  in  the  name  of  “religion  and  our 
Lady  of  Guadalupe”  against  this  class,  the  royal  author¬ 
ity  enabled  the  officials  to  suppress  it  with  an  army  80 
per  cent  native. 

Ruin  Wrought  By  Robber  “Republics” 

After  some  years  of  turmoil  the  royal  commander, 
Iturbide,  a  native  Mexican,  joined  in  18*M  the  Creoles  and 
Indians  in  a  demand  for  an  independent  constitutional 
monarchy  under  a  prince  of  the  Spanish  line.  This  was 
the  Plan  of  Iguala  or  the  Three  Guarantees  of  Religion, 
Independence  and  Union ;  and  when  the  new  Viceroy, 
Don  Juan  O’Donoju,  sanctioned  it,  its  acceptance  seemed 
assured.  It  is  pertinent  to  notice  here  that,  despite  the 
numerous  abuses  of  Spanish  power  and  a  half  century 
of  North  and  South  America’s  example  and  incitement. 


16 


the  Mexican  declarers  of  independence  grounded  their 
claims  on  no  such  “long  train  of  abuses  and  usurpations” 
as  Britain’s  colonies  had  denounced,  and  far  from  brand¬ 
ing  their  King  a  tyrant  they  sought  the  continuance  of  his 
rule,  but  without  the  foreign  intermediaries,  against 
whom  alone  lay  the  burden  of  their  grievances. 

However  the  rejection  of  the  plan  of  Iguala  by  the 
then  rationalistic  Spanish  Cortes,  which  the  year  before 
had  ordered  the  suppression  of  all  religious  houses  and 
institutions,  threw  all  parties  into  violent  dissension,  and 
Iturbides’  assumption  of  authority  as  emperor  was  fol¬ 
lowed  by  revolt,  and  in  1824  by  his  execution,  the  usual 
Mexican  finale  of  defeated  leaders  from  Hidalgo  to  our 
day.  The  victorious"  faction  framed  a  constitution  after 
the  United  States  form  and  called  themselves  a  federal 
republic,  dividing  the  country  into  some  27  states,  regard¬ 
less  of  geographical  or  racial  or  other  natural  unfitness 
therefor.  The  constitution  looked  fairly  well  on  paper, 
but  that  was  the  sum  of  its  merits.  Mere  paper  it  re¬ 
mained. 

The  people,  by  nature  and  traditional  habits  and  the 
lack  of  that  training  for  civil  life  of  which  the  suppres¬ 
sion  or  expulsion  of  their  religious  tutors  had  robbed 
them,  had  not  the  faintest  idea  of  democracy,  nor  had 
the  framers  of  the  Republic  any  concept  of  the  work¬ 
ings  of  an  elective  or  democratic  system  of  government ; 
and  neither  have  had  their  successors  to  this  day.  Their 
republics  and  their  elections  have  been  invariably  a  mock¬ 
ery,  for  this  has  been  their  genesis  of  power:  Armed 
bands  of  self-seeking  adventurers  and  bandits  win  to 
mastery  by  slaughter  and  destruction,  executing  those  of 
their  predecessors  who  had  not  got  safely  away  with  the 
plunder  they  amassed ;  these  again  amass  riches  by  spoil 
and  graft,  till  malcontents,  dissatisfied  with  their  shar¬ 
ings,  split  off  into  another  patriotic  revolt ;  and  should 
they  succeed,  the  same  process  is  enacted  da  capo.  Once 


I 

17 

ill  power  they  get  themselves  confirmed  by  safely  organ¬ 
ized,  pistol-picked  electors  discriminately  counted, 
whereof  the  “election”  of  Calles  is  a  typical  example. 
Flores,  his  opponent,  had  the  votes,  but  the  Calles  faction 
had  the  counting,  to  which  the  suspiciously  sudden  death 
of  I"  lores  gaves  Mexican  validity. 

A  Congress  so  selected  in  1825  named  one  Victoria 
president  at  the  bidding  of  the  leading  giierrilleros,  ana 
he  was  promptly  recognized  by  governments  eager  for  a 
share  in  Mexico’s  mines  and  commercial  wealth.  The 
1824  constitution  like  the  Plan  of  Iguala  guaranteed  the 
rights  of  the  Church,  but  in  this  respect  as  in  most  others 
the  guarantors  utterly  disregarded  their  organic  instru¬ 
ment  ;  wherein  they  were  ably  abetted,  if  not  guided,  by 
Joel  R.  Ponsett,  the  first  American  Consul,  who  had  se¬ 
cured  them  United  States  support  against  Iturbide,  and 
with  other  Americans  was  actively  promoting  Masonry  in 
Mexico.  It  was  the  period  when  M'asonry  had  reached 
such  political  power  in  the  United  States  that  a  national 
party  was  formed  to  avert  its  menace ;  and  while  at  its 
apogee  it  streamed  over  the  border,  its  prestige  attract¬ 
ing  many  to  its  York  and  Scottish  Rites  whom  the  brand 
imported  by  the  Bonapartist  and  Spanish  rationalists  had 
not  affected. 

The  rival  factions  split  into  “Escoseses”  and  “York- 
inos”  and  as  the  president  was  Yorkino  and  federal,  the 
vice-president,  who  always  aims  to  supplant  him,  was 
Escoses  and  Centralist ;  and  the  eagerness  of  each  fac¬ 
tion  to  gain  followers,  with  the  American  consulate’s  en¬ 
couragement,  inoculated  widely  the  IMasonic  virus  and 
made  Masonic  membership  a  prerequisite  for  political 
power  and  the  multiplying  jobs  at  its  disposal.  This  un¬ 
dermined  the  loyalty  of  many,  and  the  Church’s  necessary 
condemnation  of  both  Masonic  alignments  and  their  sys¬ 
tem  of  plunder  and  graft,  intensified  their  hate  and  de¬ 
termined  them  to  destroy  the  Chvirch  and  its  influence 


18 


with  the  masses,  on  the  logical  principle  that  as  two  such 
powers  cannot  co-exist,  the  Church  must  go,  or  go  under. 
On  this  policy  both  factions  were  at  one,  and  their 
hunger  for  available  spoil  speeded  their  invasion  of  the 
Church's  rights  and  possessions  in  the  teeth  of  their  own 
constitution. 

In  1828  they  decreed  the  expulsion  of  the  Franciscan 
and  other  Spanish  missionaries  among  the  Indians,  with 
confiscation  of  the  properties  they  held  in  trust,  despite 
the  prophetic  protests  of  the  governors  in  California  and 
elsewhere,  that  the  withdrawal  of  their  only  teachers  and 
controllers  would  throw  the  Indians  back  into  savagery. 
In  1833 'they  initiated  the  accomplishment  of  Masonry’s 
paramount  purpose  by  banishing  clergy  and  religion  from 
all  public  schools  and  national  education  ;  and  while  still 
claiming  the  royal  privileges  of  filling  vacant  sees  and 
benefices,  they  proceeded  to  confiscate  further  the  re¬ 
maining  temporalities  of  the  Church. 

Count  de  Maistre  would  add  a  fifth  note  to  the  Church, 
that  all  her  enemies  are  friends.  It  is  the  sole  bond  that 
has  held  the  Alasonic  plunder  factions  of  Mexico  togeth¬ 
er.  They  were  at  one  another’s  throats  in  a  series  of 
barrack  revolutions  throiigh  all  V^ictoria’s  regime ;  and 
that  this  internecine  strife  for  spoil  and  power,  with 
consequent  anarchy,  was  intensified  during  the  three  suc¬ 
ceeding  decades  is  graphically  revealed  in  the  fact  that, 
from  1829  to  1859,  Alexico  had  forty-seven  presidents, 
not  counting  a  number  of  rival  chiefs  who  often  played 
the  part  more  efifectively  than  the  actors  in  the  title  role. 
It  was  this  grasping  for  power  of  a  defeated  faction  that 
precipitated  the  hopeless  war  with  the  United  States 
1840-1818;  and.  while  the  American  troops  were  march¬ 
ing  on  the  Capital,  the  rabid  patriots  were  fighting  bloody 
battles  with  one  another  and  decreeing  alternately  fur¬ 
ther  plunder  of  the  Church.  Mexico’s  consequent  loss  of 
Texas,  Arizona,  New  .Mexico  and  California  seems  a  fit- 


19 


ting  retribution  for  her  utter  neglect  of  that  rich  en\[)ire, 
except  to  expel  the  Jesuit  and  Franciscan  missionaries 
and  destroy  the  marvellous  foundations  they  had  built 
without  her  aid. 

The  departure  of  the  American  troops  was  the  signal 
for  universal  strife ;  and  a  decade  of  civil  wars  culmi¬ 
nated,  after  a  three  years’  struggle  of  the  Conservatives 
to  conserve  what  was  left,  in  the  occupation  of  the  Cap¬ 
ital  in  18(51  by  Benito  Juarez,  the  worst  enemy  of  re¬ 
ligion  to  usurp  the  presidency  till  Plutarco  Calles  climax¬ 
ed  even  him.  His  decree  to  suspend  payment  of  interest 
on  all  debts  recalled  to  the  foreign  creditors  United 
States  Minister  Corwin’s  report,  that  after  forty  years  of 
convulsions  under  seventy-three  rulers  and  thirty-six  dif¬ 
ferent  forms  of  government,  Mexico’s  condition  was  then 
so  hopeless  that  only  by  the  intervention  of  foreign  power 
could  order  be  restored. 

However,  the  intervention  of  England,  France  and 
Spain,  and  the  apparently  sinister  designs  of  N'apoleon 
HI  in  creating  ^Maximilian  of  Austria  Emperor  of  Mex¬ 
ico,  threw  the  United  States,  itself  convulsed  by  civil  war, 
on  the  side  of  the  Juaristas.  These,  in  the  general  eag¬ 
erness  for  stable  rule,  had  become  a  negligible  faction 
till  the  United  States,  at  first  by  unofficial  incitement  and. 
when  -its  Civil  War  was  over,  by  men,  nvoney  and  muni¬ 
tions  and  the  threat  of  a  huge  army  on  the  borders,  en¬ 
abled  them  to  overthrow  Maximilian,  and  put  and  kept 
the  Juarez  faction  in  the  saddle. 

Juarez  Conpletes  the  Church’s  Enslavement,  1857 

Maximilian  himself  had  facilitated  the  task.  The 
Conservative  party,  which  was  truly  the  people  of  Mex¬ 
ico,  had  accepted  him  on  the  basis  of  constitutional  gov¬ 
ernment  and  the  Plan  of  Iguala ;  but  when  he  declared 
his  adherence  to  the  Commonfort-Juarez  Constitution  and 
laws  they  had  pledged  him  to  repeal,  they  at  once  with- 


20 


drew  their  support.  This  alone  would  have  caused  his 
downfall,  but  only  United  States  assistance  could  have 
made  these  laws  prevail.  The  Juarez  code  was  the  cul¬ 
minating  achievement  both  of  Masonic  radicalism  then, 
and  of  Red  radicalism  now. 

The  Constitution  of  1857  confirmed  all  previous  in¬ 
fringements  of  religious  rights  and  abolished  all  that 
was  left,  outlawing  the  Church  itself  as  a  juridic  entity; 
and  the  laws  of  Juarez,  1859-1871,  gave  that  instrument 
exhaustive  statutory  effet.  Under  Articles  5  and  27, 
which  abolish  monastic  orders  and  the  right  of  religious 
institutions  and  ministers  to  acquire  property  or  the  rev¬ 
enues  therefrom,  Juarez  had  laws  enacted  in  1859,  per¬ 
petually  suppressing  all  religious  orders,  novitiates,  con¬ 
fraternities  and  sisterhoods,  even  confiscating  to  the  State 
“all  books,  printed  or  manuscript,  paintings,  antiques,  and 
other  articles  belonging  to  the  suppressed  communities.” 
Wearing  the  religious  habit  or  living  secretly  in  communi¬ 
ty  was  made  a  criminal  offence,  all  hospitals,  asylums, 
houses  of  correction  and  charitable  institutions  were  sec¬ 
ularized,  legacies  to  ministers  or  even  to  their  domestics 
or  “relations  to  the  fourth  degree”  were  made  null  and 
void,  and  “ministers  of  any  form  of  religion  cannot  act 
as  directors,  administrators  or  patrons  of  private  char¬ 
ity.” 

All  Churches  and  ecclesiastical  residences  and  appur¬ 
tenances  were  declared  state  property  and  their  use  was 
permitted  only  in  accord  with  state  regulations,  “but  no 
religious  rite  shall  take  place  outside  of  the  Church 
buildings  anywhere  in  the  republic,  including  cemeteries, 
vaults  and  crypts  which  no  cleric  shall  enter,  nor  shall 
ministers  wear  ecclesiastical  dress  or  insignia.”  The  laws 
of  1859  made  marriage  a  civil  contract  only  and  nullified 
all  marriages  not  so  contracted,  the  State  alone  determin¬ 
ing  validity,  nullity,  divorce  and  all  other  marriage  ques¬ 
tions.  N/ot  only  was  the  Church  forbidden  to  teach,  but 


21 


all  religious  instruction  in  public  institutions  was  prohib¬ 
ited,  and  the  name  of  God  was  eliminated  from  oaths  and 
other  civil  formalities  and  instruments  of  public  instruc¬ 
tion.  Other  “Reform  Laws”  of  like  purport  were  enact¬ 
ed  and  in  1874  President  Tejada  raised  many  of  them  to 
constitutional  rank.  A  study  of  this  cumulative  system 
of  exhaustive  persecution  seems  to  justify  the  claim  of 
Calles  that  he  is  but  executing  the  laws  he  had  found  al¬ 
ready  enacted.  The  most  despotic  persecutor  can  go  no 
lengths  for  which  the  Juarez  system  will  not  find  him 
warrant. 

This  orgy  of  penal  laws  was  hampered  in  execution 
by  similar  orgies  of  revolt  and  strife,  assassination,  con¬ 
fiscation  and  universal  anarchy.  Neither  Juarez  nor  Te¬ 
jada,  his  understudy,  ever  held  undisputed  sway  outside 
the  capital ;  and  priests  continued  to  function  where  and 
how  they  could,  risking  and  often  suffering  exile,  impris¬ 
onment  and  death.  Jesuits  and  others  who  in  1873  were 
discovered  in  “felonious”  operation  were  expelled  and  in 
1874  three  hundred  Sisters  of  Charity  were  deported  on 
the  charge  of  “secretly  undermining  the  lawful  govern¬ 
ment  of  Mexico.”  To  offset  such  perils  a  “national 
church”  had  been  set  up  with  government  and  Mffsonic 
patronage,  and  when  this  collapsed  various  United  States 
sects  were  let  loose  on  the  starving  people.  Though  their 
hunger-driven  proselytes  were  few  and  unstable,  their 
calumnious  reports  proved  valuable  propaganda  for  their 
radical  patrons,  fostering  further  antipathy  to  the  Mexi¬ 
can  Church  and  corresponding  sympathy  for  her  “liberal” 
perseeutors.  The  intensified  extension  of  such  propagan¬ 
da  with  its  reaction  on  official  headquarters  in  Washing¬ 
ton  has  become  an  important  factor  in  the  present  crisis. 

Religious  Revival  Under  the  Diaz  Toleration 

From  1876  to  1910  its  activity  diminished.  Having 
seized  the  capital  and  the  presidency  in  the  usual  fashion 


22 


after  years  of  sanguinary  war  with  the  Juaristas,  Porfirio 
Diaz  became  the  first  and  only  president  of  Mexico  to  ex¬ 
tend  his  authority  over  the  whole  nation,  to  extinguish 
brigandage  and  establish  peace  and  financial  stability,  and 
to  interrupt  the  anti-clerical  policy  of  priest-baiting  and 
Church  robbery.  The  Juarez  laws  remained;  hut  Diaz 
knew  how  to  prevent  or  temper  their  incidence  and  thus 
allow  the  harried  Church,  stripped  naked  of  all  but  her 
inherent  spiritual  power,  to  function  ever  so  quietly  and 
lead  an  underground  life  unmolested.  She  was  still  a 
mere  slave,  but  a  slave  protected  against  notable  abuse. 

Making  the  best  of  this  constructive  toleration,  she 
gradually  re-established  her  churches  and  opened  some 
:^,000  schools  and  institutions  among  the  Indian  popula¬ 
tion,  often  where  she  had  suffered  a  dozen  confiscations ; 
and  she  re-established  and  reorganized  her  seminaries. 
From  the  priestly  training  and  the  apostolic  labors  of  that 
period  was  begotten  the  marvelous  heroism  of  faith  and 
loyalty  displayed  by  priests  and  people  in  the  present 
crisis.  At  the  end  of  the  Diaz  period  some  2,000  free 
schools  and  colleges  and  practically  all  the  rural  schools, 
since  the  inadec[uate  state  system  seldom  extended  be¬ 
yond  the  cities,  together  with  all  the  hospitals  and  numer¬ 
ous  benevolent  institutions  of  Mexico,  were  maintained, 
and  maintained  free,  by  clergy  and  sisterhoods  that  were 
penniless,  entirely  dependent  on  the  generous  charity 
of  rich  and  poor. 

This  disposes  of  two  of  the  three  main  charges 
brought  against  the  Mexican  Church  :  that  she  has  amassed 
immense  riches,  kept  the  people  in  ignorance,  and  in  the 
Spanish  period  maintained  herself  by  the  murderous  re¬ 
pression  of  the  Inquisition.  All  three  are  calumnious 
myths,  invented  in  the  lodges  and  forged,  fashioned  and 
propagated  for  American  consumption.  Whatever  the 
Inquisition  may  be  charged  with  elsewhere,  it  has  a  clear 
record  in  Mexico.  All  Indians  were  exempt  from  its  jur- 


iscliction,  and  in  277  years  the  sum  total  of  its  death  pen¬ 
alties  was  49,  mostly  foreign  disturbers  whom  any’  crim¬ 
inal  court  would  so  sejitence ;  which  sustains  the  conclu¬ 
sion  of  a  recent  reviewer  that  our  gunmen  have  wrought 
more  destruction  in  a  year  than  had  the  Spanish  Inqui¬ 
sition  in  three  centuries. 

The  salient  historic  facts  recorded  not  only  preclude 
the  amassing  of  wealth  by  the  Church  but  charge  to  her 
despoilers  the  illiteracy  and  poverty  of  the  peons.  The 
Indians  were  always  exempt  from  the  ChurcU  tithes,  and 
tnese,  moreover,  were  applied  by  the  King  to  the  Chris¬ 
tian  and  industrial  education  of  the  natives.  The  expul¬ 
sion  by  Charles  III  of  their  Jesuit  civilizers  with  the  con¬ 
fiscation  of  the  properties  held  in  trust  for  their  people, 
and  the  later  seizure  of  the  other  mission  properties  and 
of  the  Obras  Pias  funds  that  sustained  education  and 
agriculture,  set  back  the  industrial  anti  cultural  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  whole  population. 

Yet,  despite  these  handicaps,  education  was  more  gen¬ 
eral  among  all  classes  at  the  opening  of  the  revolutionary 
era  than  it  ever  has  been  since.  The  Church  and  her 
ministers  had  so  far  been  able  largely  to  arrest  the  down¬ 
ward  trend  by  their  labors  and  the  donations  they  se¬ 
cured.  Thereafter  they  had  to  repeat  the  process  indefi¬ 
nitely,  for  every  tangible  property  acquired  by  the  Church 
for  the  education  and  uplift  of  the  people  was  seized, 
wherever  their  sway  extended,  by  the  successive  revolu¬ 
tionary  factions,  who  invariably  used  power  as  an  avenue 
to  pelf  and  never  erected  an  educational  edifice  on  the 
ruins  they  had  made.  Diaz  was  the  sole  exception ;  and 
when  he  fell  the  tolerated  security  of  the  Church  fell 
with  him,  and  therewith  the  educational  and  social  res¬ 
toration  which  her  ministry  had  mainly  effected. 

Diaz’,  arbitrary  rule  of  three  decades  was  legitimized 
by  the  general  assent.  Holding  down  the  restive  and 
hungry  factions  with  a  strong  hand  and  occasional  scraps. 


lie  stabilized  finance  and  promoted  industry  and  commerce 
by  the  aid  of  foreign  investors,  chiefly  from  the  United 
States,  whose  experience  and  enterprise  he  welcomed  and 
facilitated.  It  was  Americans  who  built  up  the  Mexican 
railroad  mileage  from  a  few  hundred  to  15,00U  miles, 
opened  and  reopened  mines,  established  manufactures 
and  controlled  or  owned  the  most  productive  industries 
and  much  of  the  best  land.  Their  success  while  adding 
vastly  to  the  country's  wealth  and  general  prosperity  be¬ 
got  native  jealousy  of  the  progressive  “Gringoes”,  which 
was  fanned  by  envious  American  exploiters  who  had 
failed  to  secure  concessions.  This  was  accentuated  about 
1910  when  the  importance  of  petroleum  and  the  inex¬ 
haustible  riches  of  Mexico’s  oilfields  were  realized.  Then 
two  small  factions  hostile  to  Diaz,  powerfully  supported 
by  the  Masonic  and  evangelistic  elements  intolerant  of 
his  tolerance,  filled  the  hospitable  American  press  with 
the  infamies  of  Diaz  absolutism,  and,  with  American 
arms,  opened  revolution  on  the  border.  Had  the  Amer¬ 
ican  government  exercised  half  the  energy  it  displayed 
in  arresting  like  movements  against  Obregon  and  Calles, 
the  Madero-Magon  operations  could  not  have  been  started. 
Seeing  clearly  the  American  writing  on  the  wall,  Diaz 
resigned,  and  soon  Madero  became  president. 


U.  S.  Intervention  Props  Persecution  and  Plunder 

Madero,  an  educated  but  ill-balanced  idealist,  antago¬ 
nized  the  self-seekers  who  had  used  him  as  a  figurehead, 
tie  would  give  them  industrial  justice  when  they  wanted 
spoil,  and,  what  they  least  desired,  a  free  democracy  by 
honest  elections.  This  prospect,  the  first  of  the  kind  in 
Mexico,  stirred  the  Catholic  Union  to  activity,  and  it  soon 
became  evident  that  with  a  free  vote  and  a  fair  count 
they  would  sweep  the  elections,  federal  and  state.  Such 
an  outcome  would  be  alike  disastrous  to  the  Masonic 


Radicals  and  i’ruteslaiit  evangelists,  the  Crom  or  I.  W. 
W.  communists  and  bandits,  and  not  a  few  concessionist 
adventurers ;  and  so  another  revolution  started  in  the 
North  with  American  arms  and  munitions.  There  is  a 
persistent  report  from  well  informed  quarters  that  Diaz 
alienated  the  Washington  administration  by  refusal  to 
lease  them  Magdalena  Bay,  a  fine  harbor  well  suited  for 
a  naval  base  in  Mexican  California  which  Japan  is  also 
said  to  covet,  and  that  it  was  Madero’s  failure  to  ratify 
the  promise  of  this  lease  that  transferred  American  sup¬ 
port  to  his  motley  opponents. 

An  unlooked  for  event  foiled  their  plans  for  the  mo¬ 
ment.  Felix  Diaz,  nephew  of  Porfirio,  landed  in  Vera 
Cruz  with  European  munitions,  and  triumphantly  entered 
the  capital,  the  Porfirian  soldiers  flocking  to  his  stand¬ 
ard.  To  prevent  useless  butchery.  General  Huerta,  whose 
strength  had  maintained  the  government  thus  far,  made 
terms  whereby  Madero  surrendered  and  Huerta  became 
provisional  President.  An  Indian  like  Diaz,  he  proceed¬ 
ed  to  govern  with  such  firmness  and  justice  and  so  satisfy 
the  orderly  elements,  native  and  foreign,  that  his  govern- - 
ment  was  soon  recognized  by  England  and  Germany,  ana 
United  States  recognition,  recommended  by  her  Ambassa¬ 
dor  and  Consuls,  was  deferred  only  in  view  of  the  ap¬ 
proaching  inauguration  of  a  new  Executive.  President 
Wilson  assumed  a  diametrically  opposite  policy;  whence 
issued  the  orgy  of  anarchy  and  persecution  that  culmi¬ 
nated  in  the  decrees  of  Calles. 

For  the  first  time  in  Republican  Mexico  the  President 
opened  Congress  in  the  name  of  God  and  urged  it  to  pray, 
and  so  to  legislate,  that  God’s  law  and  peace  should  reign. 
The  people  applauded,  but  the  unrepresentative  Congress 
was  hostile,  and  a  deputation  of  Mexican  and  American 
Masons  made  the  formal  proposal  to  Huerta  that  on  his 
pledge  to  accept  their  program  they  would  secure  him 
election  and  United  States  recognition.  Huerta  bluntly 


26 


refused  the  Masonic  pledge,  saying  that  a  Catholic  he 
would  live  and  die.  Soon  a  revolt  began  to  form  in  the 
north,  and  Carranza,  its  figurehead,  was  assured  of 
United  States  support  by  deputed  representatives  of  the 
American  Scottish  Rite,  whose  Supreme  Grand  Master 
had  just  pledged  to  INIessrs.  Wilson  and  Bryan  the  serv¬ 
ices  of  World  Masonry  for  their  arbitral  peace  plans. 

Thereafter  the  government’s  Mexican  policies  fol¬ 
lowed  Masonic  lines.  Ambassador  Lane  Wilson,  who 
with  his  consular  colleagues  had  insisted  that  the  Huerta 
government  insured  stability  and  the  Carranza- Villa  ban¬ 
dits  anarchy,  was  recalled ;  and  so  was  his  successor  who 
similarly  'advised.  They  were  replaced  by  consuls  and 
emissaries  who  associated  and  cooperated  with  as  vile  a 
set  of  bandits  as  ever  raped  and  pillaged  in  the  name  of  a 
republic.  While  the  Carranza-Villa  ruffiandom  were  des¬ 
ecrating  altars  and  sanctuaries  and  robbing  whatever  re¬ 
ligious  properties  were  left,  expelling  and  even  violating 
the  sisterhoods,  torturing  and  holding  priests  for  heavy 
ransom  or  death,  and  frequently  for  both.  President  Wil¬ 
son  raised  the  arms  embargo  in  their  favor ;  and,  when 
they  still  made  little  headway,  he  seized  Vera  Cruz  April 
10,  1914,  the  only  channel  for  federal  supplies,  and  so 
by  armed  intervention  hoisted  Carranza  and  his  spoilmen 
into  power. 

That  their  previous  and  subsequent  outrages  were 
worse  and  more  numerous  than  Cardinal  Gibbons  and  the 
protesting  Catholic  societies  represented  and  were  known 
to  the  Government  as  such,  is  revealed  in  a  bulky  volume 
lately  issued  by  the  present  administration  recording  the 
United  States-Mexico  offkial  relations  of  1914.  It  in¬ 
cludes  replies  of  President  Wilson  to  Cardinal  Gibbons 
admitting  the  extent  and  enormity  of  the  crimes  against 
life,  liberty  and  religion,  and  deploring  the  inefficacy  of 
his  efforts  to  prevent  them.  His  efforts  to  put  and  keep 
their  perpetrators  in  power  knew  no  such  inefficacy.  So 


27 


eager  was  he  therefor,  that  according  to  his  closest  confi¬ 
dant,  Colonel  Honse,  he  induced  Congress  to  reverse  their 
position  and  his  on  the  Panama  Tolls  in  order  that  Eng¬ 
land,  whose  ambassador.  Sir  Lionel  Carden,  had  secured 
her  support  of  Huerta,  might  in  return  disown  both  Car¬ 
den  and  Huerta  and  thus  permit  him  a  free  hand.  It  so 
happened ;  and  though  pillage  and  outrage  and  interne^ 
cine  strife  became  ever  more  rampant  he  recognized  the 
Carranza  government,  even  with  its  1917  Constitution  be¬ 
fore  him, an  instrument  as  comprehensively  destructive  of 
religious  liberty  and  human  rights  as  the  Penal  Laws 
of  Ireland. 

This  policy  did  not  end  with  President  Wilson.  When 
the  robbers  split  over  their  spoils,  and  Obregon,  usurper 
of  the  Yaqui  tribal  lands  and  chief  drafter  of  the  1917 
Constitution,  had  displaced  and  executed  Carranza,  he 
was  recognized  in  due  course  by  President  Coolidge, 
though  Mr.  Wilson  had  charged  the  alleged  murder  of 
Madero  against  Huerta  as  a  diriment  impediment.  As 
Obregon  had  revolted  in  1920  because  Carranza  had 
picked  another  to  succeed  him,  so  in  1924  his  chief  min¬ 
ister,  de  la  Huerta,  revolted  against  him  when  he  declared 
Calles  his  heir ;  and  he  was  having  like  success  until  word 
that  the  United  States  had  supplied  munitions  to  the 
Obregon  troops  and  freedom  of  transit  through  its  ter¬ 
ritory  turned  his  victorious  march  into  flight  for  his  life 
beyond  the  borders.  The  previous  recognition  of  Obre¬ 
gon  and  this  saving  intervention,  which  secured  the  suc¬ 
cession  of  Calles,  was  efifected  through  what  has  been 
styled  “diplomacy  in  oil.” 

The  Calles  Communism  and  American  Diplomacy 

From  1914  to  1920  the  Wilson  policies  and  intermedi¬ 
aries  had,  in  return  for  concessions  to  favored  interests, 
permitted  or  condoned  innumerable  outrages  on  the  life 
and  property  of  American  citizens,  and  the  Republican 


28 


Party  had  made  this  “shame  to  the  United  States”  and 
“disgrace  to  our  civilization”  an  issue  in  the  1920  Presi¬ 
dential  campaign.  Accordingly  the  Committee  on  For¬ 
eign  Relations  sent  a  Sub-Committee  to  investigate  and 
report.  This  representative  and  competent  body  found  the 
key  of  the  situation  in  the  Oueretaro  Constitution  of 
1917  and  in  the  still  ruling  clique  who  had  devised  it. 
It  was  the  work  of  Obregon  and  Calles,  and  when  some 
few  of  the  hand-picked  delegates  objected  to  its  wildest 
provisions,  they  were  silenced  by  pistol  shots ;  whereupon 
harmony  prevailed.  It  has  been  argued  that  this  Con¬ 
stitution,  with  the  Calles  supplement  and  the  acts  there¬ 
under,  are  all  void  inasmuch  as  the  members  were  not 
elected,  the  instrument  was  not  approved  by  the  majority 
of  States,  and  both  Obregon  and  Calles  as  rebel  leaders 
were  ineligible  to  the  presidency.  But  all  these  bars  would 
equally  void  the  code  and  laws  of  Juarez  and  all  Mexican 
presidencies,  if  we  except  the  later  validation  of  Diaz. 
Their  only  validity  was  violence,  and  the  only  essential 
difference  lies  in  the  present  more  ruthless  enforcement 
of  the  worst  Juarez  iniquities,  of  which  the  Calles  com¬ 
pilation  is  the  logical  derivative.  The  1917  anti-religious 
articles  and  the  Calles  Decrees  only  extend  the  drastic 
confiscations  and  prohibitions  of  1857  by  depriving  every 
minister  and  religious,  and  in  some  respects  every  mem¬ 
ber  of  the  Church,  of  juridic  personality.  Stripping  the 
Church’s  personnel  of  citizenship  and  ownership,  and 
violators  and  even  critics  of  its  provisions  of  jury  trial 
and  process  of  law,  the  Calles  completion  of  the  1857 
and  1917  Constitution  rounds  out  a  system  more  effec¬ 
tively  contrived  to  uproot  religion  forever  than  even  that 
code  pronounced  by  Burke  the  masterpiece  of  perverted 
ingenuity. 

But  it  has  other  and  wider  restrictions,  specifically 
communistic,  that  more  directly  concerned  the  American 
Committee.  Article  27  vests  in  the  State  the  ownership 


29 


of  all  lands  and  the  determination  of  the  maximum  area 
it  shall  lease  to  individuals ;  makes  all  previous  contracts 
and  ownership  null  and  void ;  prescribes  that  all  mines, 
oil  wells  and  other  interests  and  enterprises  shall  be  op¬ 
erated  by  natives  only ;  and  that  foreigners  can  retain 
or  acquire  property  only  by  naturalization  or  by  sworn 
renunciation  of  the  right  of  recourse  to  their  home  gov¬ 
ernment  for  redress.  In  effect,  the  two  sets  of  articles 
mean,  first,  that  the  Catholic  Church  shall  not  function 
nor  foreigners  exercise  its  ministry ;  second,  that  the  State 
may  filch  and  apportion  all  property  at  will,  including 
some  billion  dollars’  worth  under  American  title,  and  bar 
foreigners  from  further  acquisition. 

The  American  Committee  in  a  voluminous  report  rec¬ 
ommended  a  new  treaty  removing  the  Constitution’s  dis¬ 
criminations  against  American  rights,  or,  in  lieu  thereof, 
occupation  of  Mexican  ports  by  U.  S.  Marines.  It  would 
condition  recognition  on  definite  stipulations  that  Ameri¬ 
cans  shall  be  free  to  enter,  reside,  teach,  preach,  and  hold 
church  property  in  Mexico,  provided  they  take  no  part  in 
its  politics ;  and  that  all  retroactive  or  other  laws  barring 
foreigners  from  ownership  shall  not  apply  to  Americans. 
In  brief,  the  Committee  advised  that  the  Mexican  gov¬ 
ernment  should  not  be  admitted  to  friendly  relations  until 
it  had  guaranteed  such  exercise  of  all  fundamental  rights 
as  is  the  wont  of  civilized  peoples. 

In  1921  the  Harding  administration  took  up  the  ques¬ 
tion;  and  therewith  the  Mexican  politicians  and  certain 
American  Companies  also  became  active.  The  oil  mag¬ 
nates,  who  gave  thought  solely  to  their  money  interests, 
went  down  to  Mexico  and  made  arrangements  with  Ob- 
regon  and  Calles  whereby  their  National  Petroleum  Oil 
Company  should  hold  a  51  per  cent  and  Mexico  a  49  per 
cent  interest  in  all  oil  reserves,  and,  in  return,  the  Mexi¬ 
can  Government  would  receive  a  $5,000,000  bonus,  gener¬ 
ous  assistance  in  flotation  of  loans,  and  American  recog- 


30 


nition.  This  last  was  more  difficult  in  view  of  the  For¬ 
eign  Relations  Committee’s  report,  which  weighed  other 
things  than  oil ;  but  a  cabinet  minister,  who  was  later 
dismissed  and  put  under  indictment  on  oil  charges,  fa¬ 
cilitated  matters.  Two  commissioners,  friendly  to  oil 
were  dispatched  to  iMexico,  and  on  their  report  of  Obre- 
gon’s  commercial  concessions  and  promises  contrary  to 
his  constitution,  but  of  no  change  nor  promise  of  change 
in  its  provisions,  i’resident  Coolidge  granted  recognition 
bieptember  23,  1923.  When  soon  thereafter  Obregon  was 
hard  pressed  by  de  la  Huerta  it  was  his  American  oil 
beneficiaries  who  secured  him  Washington’s  saving  inter¬ 
vention. 

He  had  convinced  them  that  the  Constitution’s  prohi¬ 
bitions  would  not  aff'ect  their  interests ;  that,  in  fact,  he 
had  not  enforced  its  religious  nor  property  restrictions, 
and  he  had  a  convenient  judiciary  to  interpret  them.  This 
seemed  plausible  then ;  but  when  Calles  was  counted  into 
the  presidency  the  true  inwardness  of  Mexican  diplomacy 
became  revealed.  Constitutionally  ineligible  on  the  triple 
ground  that  he  is  the  son  of  a  foreigner,  had  shared  in 
the  previous  revolutions,  and  was  not  elected,  Calles 
boldly  reasserted  his  notorious  Bolshevik  pronouncements 
and,  proclaiming  immediate  enforcement  of  both  its  anti- 
religious  and  confiscatory  provisions,  he  had  his  judges 
to  reverse  their  reversal  of  the  constitution  regarding  the 
petroleum  concessions.  Now  that  he  had  secured  Ameri¬ 
can  recognition  and  the  monies  of  the  Oil  Companies,  he 
felt  safe  in  cancelling'  his  commitments  therefor;  and  for 
three  substantial  reasons. 

He  had  secured  the  affiliation  of  the  Communist 
Crom,  his  personal  political  faction,  under  the  guise  of  a 
labor  union  with  the  American  Federation  of  Labor. 
When  Calles’  plan  of  confiscating  private  properties  for 
the  benefit  of  his  following  was  personally  presented  to 
Mr.  Gompers,  the  then  president  of  the  Federation,  as 


31 


the  chart  of  restoration  of  lands  and  rights  to  the  de¬ 
frauded  peon  workers,  he  accepted  it  as  such,  and  by  his 
influence  secured  for  Calles  and  his  party  the  support  of 
perhaps  the  most  powerful  organization  in  America. 

He  also  relied  on  another  society  whose  still  wider  in¬ 
fluence  had  helped  to  establish  American  recognition. 
As  himself  a  33rd  Degree  Mason  and  recipient  of 
a  Medal  from  American  IMasonry,  both  rare  Ma¬ 
sonic  distinctions,  and  backed  openly  by  the  U.  S.  Su¬ 
preme  Council  of  the  Scottish  Rite,  which  conducted  a 
political  campaign  for  compulsory  secularization  of  Amer¬ 
ican  schools,  their  declared  supreme  objective,  Calles 
counted  with  confidence  on  the  three  million  voting  Ma¬ 
sons  of  the  United  States.  On  these  and  other  non-Cath- 
olics  he  had  further  grounds  of  reliance. 

By  afifording  friendly  facilities  to  the  Protestant  pros- 
elyters  in  Mexico,  while  persecuting  ruthlessly  the  Cath¬ 
olic  Church,  Calles  won  the  enthusiastic  support  of  the 
Baptist  and  Methodist  and  Protestant  x\lliance  leagues, 
whose  political  activity  had  imposed  their  program  on 
the  nation  and  has  long  been  dominating  Congress  and 
Senate.  Moreover,  he  could  reckon  on  the  virulence  of 
the  pervasive  Ku  Klux  Klan  and  the  traditional  Protest¬ 
ant  prejudice,  which,  because  restrained  at  home  by  the 
American  Constitution,  would  be  more  readily  enlisted 
for  anti-Catholic  movements  abroad ;  and  his  consular 
and  special  agencies  had  everywhere  established  centres 
of  lying  propaganda  to  utilize  and  unify  the  forces  of 
American  bigotry.  He  had  also  noted  that  the  Catholic 
attempts  to  stem  the  Mdlson  intervention  in  favor  of  his 
gang  had  been  weak  and  inetfectual,  and  his  personal 
experience  had  convinced  him  that  the  Mexican  clergy 
would  suffer  whatsoever  outrages  meekly,  for  he  and  his 
kind  had  seen  to  it  that  suffering  was  the  badge  of  all 
their  tribe. 

Hence  he  continued  recklessly  the  expulsion  of  for- 


eigu  as  well  as  native  priests  and  religions  (including  the 
papal  delegates  Mgr.  (^respi  and  Archbishop  Caruana,  an 
American  citizen),  completed  the  suppression  of  religious 
institutions,  and  extended  nation-wide  confiscation  and 
spoilation  with  accompaniments  of  murder,  desecration 
and  other  crimes  and  brutalities  too  numerous  or  inde¬ 
cent  for  narration.  There  was  general,  if  passive  resist¬ 
ance ;  and  the  more  effectually  to  crush  it,  he  issued  June 
14,  1936,  his  supplementary  decrees,  so  clamping  down  the 
1917  Constitution  that  no  religious  institution  may  exist ; 
that  within  the  Church  no  priest  may  function  except  in 
the  manner,  measure,  times,  places  and  numbers  the  state 
prescribes,  and  outside  of  churches  there  can  be  no  re¬ 
ligious  teaching  nor  service  by  lay  or  cleric,  family  or 
group,  of  any  kind  anywhere ;  and  that  the  federal,  state 
and  municipal  officials  shall  impose  without  jury  or  trial 
the  drastic -penalties  prescribed  for  violations,  and,  fail¬ 
ing  so  to  do  or  to  report  infractions,  shall  themselves  be 
subject  to  like  fines  and  imprisonments  with  forfeiture 
of  office. 


The  Mexican  Resurrection 

Then  something  new  happened  in  Mexico.  Bishop 
Manriguez  y  Zarate  of  Huejutla  had  issued  in  March  a 
memorable  pastoral  of  a  quality  unwonted  in  Mexican 
allocutions.  It  proved  a  trumpet  call  to  all  Mexico,  and 
beyond.  Entered  in  the  Congressional  Record  by  Con¬ 
gressman  Gallivan,  it  has  reached  every  quarter  of  the 
States  through  government  mail  and  by  its  virile  sinceri¬ 
ty  counteracted  the  Calles  propaganda.  Painting  vividly 
the  outrages  on  human  rights  as  on  religion,  that  this  new 
and  more  ruthless  Jacobinism  inflicts,  and  the  suicide 
which  the  Church’s  submission  to  State  license  for  her 
every  act  of  ministry  and  worship  and  use  of  even  voice 
and  pen  would  effectuate,  he  summons  priests  and  people 
to  wield  the  sword  of  thought  and  opinion  before  which 


33 


despotism  crumbles,  and  defend  their  rights  against  this 
fury  of  outrage  on  their  manhood  as  on  their  faith. 

To  their  failure  therein  he  traced  the  source  of  their 
calamities.  Not  only  was  the  charge  that  they  had  played 
politics  a  lie,  but  it  was  their  culpable  omission  to  take 
part  in  fundamental  politics,  in  those  principles  and  prob¬ 
lems  of  government  on  which  depend  the  peace  and  wel¬ 
fare  of  peoples,  that  had  brought  down  on  them  God’s 
anger,  of  which  their  persecutors  are  but  the  instruments. 
Let  them  repair  the  omission;  assert  their  citizenship;  re¬ 
sist  the  destroyers  of  human  right ;  stand  steadfast  nor 
flee  before  the  wolf  ;  be  martyrs,  if  need  be,  for  faith  and 
freedom  and  go  boldly  to  prison  and  to  death.  Let  pas¬ 
tors  set  example  of  sacrifice  to  their  flock.  If  Churches 
are  closed  make  every  home  a  sanctuary.  If  one  school 
is  seized,  open  another ;  and  hold  school  under  tents  and 
trees  if  roofs  be  barred.  By  sacrifice  of  pleasure,  by 
Christian  virility,  let  young  and  old,  but  the  young  men 
foremost,  fight  God’s  battle ;  and  never  yield  nor  falter 
till  every  manacle  of  religious  educational  and  civic  free¬ 
dom  is  struck  from  Constitution  and  law.  Thus  will  God 
lift  His  chastisement  for  their  culpable  sufifrance  of  wrong 
and  bring  them  from  the  catacombs  to  the  sun  of  liberty. 

This  brave  prelate’s  arrest  and  imprisonment,  with 
cruel  indignities  that  still  continue,  seem  to  have  burnt 
his  appeal  into  the  heart  of  Mexico.  Declaring  accep¬ 
tance  of  the  Calles  decrees  apostacy,  the  Bishops  of  Mex¬ 
ico  not  only  ordered  suspension  of  Church  service  from 
the  date  of  their  enforcement,  but  directed  the  faithful  on 
the  lines  of  Bishop  Manriquez’  appeal.  The  universal  re¬ 
sponse  in  sacramental  devotion  on  the  closing  days  of 
service  and  monster  petitions  against  the  laws,  held  no 
alarms  for  the  Calles  clique ;  rather  deepened  their  reli¬ 
ance  on  Protestant  prejudice,  which  this  striking  Catholic 
manifestation  would  further  enkindle.  In  fact,  their  prop¬ 
agandists  and  Protestant  alliance  sympathizers  still  util- 


34 


ize  this  as  an  argument  that  United  States  action  against 
Calles  would  l)e  intervention  in  a  merely  religious  conflict 
to  save  Rome  from  the  champions  of  liberty. 

But  another  Mexican  manifestation  did  gravely  alarm 
them.  The  existing  Catholic  lay  societies  became  active 
and,  having  welded  the  young  men  and  women  of  all  j\Iex- 
ico  into  a  well  knit  League  of  Religious  Liberty,  pro¬ 
claimed  a  boycott  against  buying.  Calles’  governing 
agencies,  particularly  his  Red  Army  of  the  Crom,  had 
been  kept  in  hand  by  heavy  payments  and  perquisites 
drawn  mainly  from  taxation  on  every  industry  and  arti¬ 
cle  of  commerce.  Hence  business  was  at  its  nadir,  and 
a  further  slump  in  sales  would  be  a  severe  blow  to  his 
power.  It  would  also  put  the  Religious  Liberty  League 
to  a  severe  test ;  but  they  met  it  unflinchingly.  Harmon¬ 
izing  with  the  Bishop's  appeal  for  sacrifice  the  boycott  be¬ 
came,  and  after  nine  months  remains,  astonishingly  efifec- 
tive.  All  luxuries  were  banned  in  food,  clothing,  amuse¬ 
ment  and  travel,  and  co-ordinated  leaders  were  assigned 
to  every  state,  district,  city,  street  and  square  in  order  to 
make  and  keep  this  self-denying  system  complete  and  uni¬ 
versal.  The  resultant  fall  in  revenues,  as  vouched  in  U. 
S.  reports,  averaged  more  than  50  per  cent;  profits  from 
railways  and  government-owned  industries  were  turned 
into  loss ;  general  business  has  become  paralyzed,  the  ex¬ 
change  value  of  the  peso  continuously  lower,  and  the  gov¬ 
ernment  so  bankrupt  that  it  has  failed  to  meet  the  inter¬ 
est  on  its  home  and  most  of  its  foreign  debts. 

The  leaders  of  the  League  were  everywhere  arrested 
and  imprisoned,  often  tortured  and  murdered,  and  women 
were  shamefully  maltreated,  but  others  had  been  provid¬ 
ed  to  replace  them  indefinitely,  and  when  all  the  honest 
journals  were  suppressed  news  leaflets  were  distributed 
more  numerously  ;  and  the  movement  is  still  in  full  vigor 
of  unremitting  and  heroic  endurance.  Bishops,  priests 
and  laymen  have  been  held  in  filthy  dungeons  for  ran- 


35 


som  or  for  hostage.  This  had  been  a  rich  .source  of  rev¬ 
enue,  for  the  faithful  collected  the  monies  to  save  their 
priests  from  death.  It  is  so  no  more.  Word  has  gone 
forth  that  no  ransom  must  be  paid ;  and  so  martyrs  mul¬ 
tiply,  lay  and  cleric,  after  the  inspiration  and  example  of 
the  Bishop  of  Huejutla.  Priests  administer  the  sacra¬ 
ments  feloniously  in  the  homes,  which  are  guarded  as  in 
the  Irish  penal  days,  and  the  “hedge  schools”  have  had 
also  reproduction.  The  mutual  fidelity  of  priests  and 
people  at  such  a  harrowing  price  has  been  the  most  tell¬ 
ing  refutation  of  the  voluminous  calumnies  that  so  widely 
defamed  them,  and  the  sturdy  fight  they  are  making  has 
stirred  a  sympathy  in  the  States  that  is  breaking  the  force 
of  ])rejudice  and  propaganda. 

America’s  Answer  to  Calles 

Calles’  calculations  on  Catholic  inertia  have  also  gone 
wrong.  An  article  by  the  present  writer  in  1914,  expos¬ 
ing  the  injustices,  the  Masonic  provenance,  and  the  anar¬ 
chic  consec|uences  of  the  Wilson  intervention,  had  wide 
circulation  in  the  Knights  of  Columbus  organ  and  in 
pamphlet,  and  Dr.  Kelley,  now  Bishop  of  Oklahoma  wrote 
vigorously  to  like  purpose  for  the  million  readers  of  his 
Extension  Magatsinc  and  in  several  brilliant  and  well-in¬ 
formed  brochures ;  yet  the  Catholic  public  remained  dor¬ 
mant.  They  could  not  be  convinced  that  the  defamations 
of  the  Mexican  Church  and  people  lacked  substantial  ba¬ 
sis,  and  the  numerous  occupants  of  petty  government  of¬ 
fices  grew  indignant  over  the  imprudence  and  disloyalty 
of  “attacking  the  government.”  Dr.  Kelley  had  not  been 
open  to  this  charge ;  but  now  a  prelate  arose  who  as¬ 
sailed  the  Administration’s  action  directly  and  persist¬ 
ently. 

Archbishop  Curley  of  Baltimore,  in  whose  primatial 
See  Washington  is  situated,  determined  to  put  the  respon¬ 
sibility  where  it  belonged.  Seeing  hundreds  of  priests  and 


36 


religious  despoiled  and  outraged  and  thousands  of  refu¬ 
gees  cast  helpless  on  our  borders,  among  them  not  a  few 
Americans  seeking  vainly  their  government’s  protection, 
he  concluded  that  private  appeals  to  “this  or  that  adminis¬ 
tration  when  it  is  a  question  of  persecution  of  Catholics” 
were  useless.  For  ten  years  each  in  turn  had  given  un¬ 
broken  support  to  the  Red  rulers  of  Mexico  and  had  kept 
unbroken  silence  on  their  systematized  outrages  on  hu¬ 
man  rights. 

In  a  series  of  crisp  articles  in  the  Baltimore  Catholic 
Reviezv,  the  Archbishop  unfolded  for  the  first  time  the 
naked  facts  of  the  Washington-Mexico  relations.  Hav¬ 
ing  reviewed  the  Wilson  interventions  and  the  horrors 
that  ensued,  including  the  organic  monstrosity  of  1917, 
he  detailed,  with  names  and  dates,  the  negotiations  by 
which  the  natural  rights  of  men,  Americans  as  well  as 
Mexicans,  were  callously  bartered  for  oil  and  money  and 
minerals  in  the  interest  of  the  influential  few.  and  how 
persecution  was  condoned  for  the  placation  of  bigots.  He 
was  asking,  not  that  we  intervene  in  behalf  of  Mexican 
Catholics,  but  that  we  cease  to  intervene  against  them ; 
that  our  Administration  reverse  its  policy  of  regarding 
the  Mexican  problem  solely  through  the  eyes  of  the 
money  interests  while  disregarding  the  ideals  of  justice 
that  should  govern  the  interrelations  of  nations.  Allud¬ 
ing  to  powerful  influences  exerted  to  arrest  his  disclos¬ 
ures,  he  declared  that  as  Bishop  and  as  citizen  he  would 
not  be  silenced  while  the  misuse  of  our  power  and  the 
subversion  of  our  principles  were  crucifying  a  Catholic 
people  before  his  eyes. 

The  Archbishop’s  speeches  and  writings,  equally  co¬ 
gent  and  fearless,  put  the  administration  apologists  on  a 
retreating  defensive.  Another  effect  was  a  Catholic  re¬ 
surgence  from  the  inertia  that  had  comforted  Calles.  Two 
lay  Catholic  magazines  that  affected  the  role  of  leader- 
•ship  had  been  stressing  the  perils  of  bringing  the  Mexican 


37 


question  into  politics,  and  other  pious  pacifists  of  political 
connections  had  also  been  interpreting  the  Holy  Father’s 
call  to  prayer  as  a  prohibition  of  further  action.  Stigma¬ 
tizing  these  counsels  as  “the  prudence  of  cowardice”  and 
“the  weak-kneed  attitude  that  has  perpetuated  our  weak¬ 
ness,”  his  Grace  insisted  that  since  Catholics,  as  Ameri¬ 
can  citizens,  were  largely  responsible  for  the  ruthless  war 
on  religion  and  liberty  in  Mexico,  it  was  therefore  their 
civic  as  well  as  religious  duty  to  organize  their  twenty 
millions  in  united  protest  against  their  country’s  collab¬ 
oration  or  connivance  with  such  persecutors. 

In  July  the  Knights  of  Columbus  National  Conven¬ 
tion,  representing  800,000  members,  unanimously  en¬ 
dorsed  this  policy  in  resolutions  presented  to  President 
Coolidge,  and  created  a  million  dollar  fund  towards  en¬ 
lightening  the  American  people  on  our  Mexican  rela¬ 
tions.  Their  organ,  Columbia,  a  monthly  magazine  of 
800,000  circulation,  has  been  contributing  effectively 
thereto  in  a  series  of  frank  and  well  informed  articles ; 
and  besides  numerous  pithy  brochures  of  their  own,  they 
have  given  wide  circulation  to  the  recent  admirable  Pas¬ 
toral  of  the  American  Episcopate,  a  luminous  analysis  of 
the  Mexican  situation  and  the  civic  and  religious  conse¬ 
quences  involved.  Thus,  the  Catholic  laity  have  at  last 
been  put  in  the  way  of  realizing  their  national  responsi¬ 
bilities. 

The  American  Federation  of  Tabor  has  proved  an 
equal  disappointment  to  Calles.  Their  National  Conven¬ 
tion  a  month  after  the  K.  of  C.  meeting,  felt  its  reaction, 
and  President  Green  was  called  to  account  for  his  friendly 
transactions  with  the  Crom,  which  was  denounced  as  a 
subsidized  ' political  jDand  of  grafting  gunmen,  “redder 
than  the  Russian  Reds,”  who  cowed  and  forcibly  domi¬ 
nated  the  workers.  A  resolution  was  forced  on  the  exec¬ 
utive  to  ascertain  the  real  character  of  their  Mexican  af¬ 
filiation,  and  the  President  was  constrained  to  write  to 


38 


Morones,  head  of  the  Crom  and  Calles’  Secretary  of  La¬ 
bor,  dissociating  the  American  Federation  from  its  perse¬ 
cuting  activities.  As  a  result  of  the  discussion  the  large 
Catholic  membership  is  now  in  a  position  to  repress  the 
Federation’s  communistic  elements  and  tendencies,  and 
Calles  can  no  longer  count  on  American  labor. 

Nor  has  Masonry  been  as  helpful  as  was  hoped.  The 
Masonic  and  allied  societies’  leaders  and  mouthpieces 
have  supported  the  Calles  policies  virulently,  but  they 
have  no  such  control  of  the  general  membership  as  Latin 
Masonry  can  exercise.  The  vast  majority  of  the  three 
million  U.  S.  Masons  are  more  American  than  Masonic, 
being  both  too  numerous  and  too  traditionally  imbued 
with  the  principles  of  true  liberty  to  be  fully  inoculated 
by  the  Masonic  virus.  Hence  they  are  prone  to  take  the 
American  rather  than  Masonic  viewpoint  upon  questions 
of  national  import ;  and  some  new  developments  gave  the 
Mexican  question  more  distinctively  such  an  aspect. 

Calles’  Defiance;  Washington’s  and  Mexico’s  Reply 

These  arose  from  Calles’  withdrawal  of  the  American 
concessions  which  had  secured  him,  with  recognition,  his 
own  succession  to  Obregon,  and  from  his  further  procla¬ 
mation  that  the  Constitution’s  reversion  of  all  property  to 
the  state  remains  intact;  that  therefore  a  majority  in¬ 
terest  in  all  oil  and  other  properties  shall  be  held  by  Mex¬ 
icans,  and  the  titles  of  all  foreign  claimants  who  should 
not  have  applied  for  and  been  granted  leases  on  these 
terms  by  January  1,  1927,  would  be  ipso  facto  null.  This 
defiance  of  the  United  States  was  forced  on  Calles  by  the 
bankruptcy  his  policies  had  created.  The  robbings  of  the 
few  remaining  Church  properties  had  yielded  little,  and 
the  confiscation  of  the  large  estates  and  haciendas  had 
eliminated  productive  farming  till  land  became  valueless, 
while  the  conseciuent  loss  of  revenue  was  more  than 
doubled  by  the  economic  boycott.  Hence  there  was  noth- 


39 


ing-  left  to  satisfy  or  gratify  his  expensive  army  and  hun¬ 
gry  Crom  supporters,  l)ut  confiscation  of  tlie  rich  reve¬ 
nue  producing  oil  lands.  Calles’  necessity  was  the  Cool- 
idge  administration's  opportunity  to  recede  gracefully 
from  its  former  position.  Secretary  of  State  Kellogg 
protested  in  such  language  gainst  the  retroactive  and  con¬ 
fiscatory  decrees  that  in  consequence  the  American  oil 
companies  and  most  foreign  property  holders  made  no 
application  for  leases ;  and  while  awaiting  the  first  overt 
act  against  American  properties,  the  secretary  forbade 
transmission  of  war  materials  which  the  Calles  govern¬ 
ment  had  purchased  in  the  United  States. 

This  action  was  partly  occasioned  by  Mexico’s  pro¬ 
motion  of  a  Red  revolution  in  Nicaragua  against  the  con¬ 
servative  government  of  President  Diaz  which  the  United 
States  had  recognized.  Large  Nicaraguan  interests,  in¬ 
cluding  lease  of  a  projected  Canal  strip  and  of  naval 
bases  for  protection  of  the  Panama  Canal,  made  a  sane 
and  friendly  government  desirable.  The  Calles  faction 
were  more  than  suspect  of  promoting  their  Polshevistic 
system  in  other  Central-American  States,  and  on  January 
10  were  charged  by  President  Coolidge  with  supplying 
munitions  and  forces  and  inspiration  to  the  Nicaragua 
rebels.  Hence  American  contingents  had  been  sent  to 
protect  x\merican  interests,  munitions  were  declared  open 
to  Diaz  and  closed  to  the  rebels,  and  U.  S.  cruisers  were 
ordered  to  intercept  supplies  from  M'exico.  Secretary 
Kellogg  significantly  branded  such  Mexican  activity  “an 
unfriendly  act,”  and  on  January  10,  President  Coolidge 
said  that  the  faction  disturbing  the  legitimate  and  friend¬ 
ly  government  of  Nicaragua  was  recognized  by  Mexico 
alone,  and  his  government  would  continue  such  action  as 
the  protection  of  the  lives  and  properties  of  their  nation¬ 
als  should  require,  and  of  those  of  Italy  and  England, 
whose  embassies  had  recpiested  it.  Later,  when  a  Con¬ 
gressional  resolution  commended  arbitration,  the  Presi- 


40 


dent  insisted  that  as  good  faith  and  the  right  of  owner¬ 
ship  and  other  rights  involved  are  inalienable,  there  was 
nothing  to  arbitrate  with  Mexico. 

Meanwhile  Mexican  events  were  pointing  in  the  di¬ 
rection  of  these  utterances.  While  hesitating  to  execute 
his  decrees  against  American  properties  and  playing  for 
anti-Catholic  support  through  a  self-appointed  “Peace 
Committee”  of  American  partisans,  Calles  arrested  Bishop 
Pascual  Diaz,  secretary  and  executive  of  the  Episcopate, 
and  two  American  correspondents  who  sought  to  interview 
him.  As  a  Mexican  of  Indian  ancestry  and  American  ex¬ 
perience,  Bishop  Diaz  commanded  wide  influence  in  both 
countries,  and  in  every  encounter  with  Calles  had  the  bet¬ 
ter  of  the  argument.  To  shut  off  this  influence  and  si¬ 
lence  the  voice  of  the  episcopate  at  this  juncture,  he  was 
spirited  away  to  Guatemala ;  for  the  character  of  a  new 
uprising,  coincident  with  American  unfriendliness,  had 
put  Calles  in  a  panic.  The  revolt  of  the  Yaqui  tribes, 
and  numerous  local  outbreaks,  and  de  la  Huerta’s  an¬ 
nouncement-  of  a  projected  revolution  for  civic  and  re¬ 
ligious  liberty,  could  be  disregarded  while  American  arms 
and  recognition  were  exclusively  his ;  but  the  new  move¬ 
ment  was  more  serious. 

Men  of  character  and  influence  untainted  by  factional 
connections,  had  issued  a  call  to  arms  against  the  Calles- 
Crom  regime  in  various  States  and  districts,  and  pro¬ 
claimed  a  Provisional  Government.  Knowing  that  with 
a  free  hand  such  men  would  rally  all  Mexico  to  the  ban¬ 
ner  of  the  Cross  and  liberty,  Calles  gathered  and  impris¬ 
oned  in  Mexico  City  all  the  priests  and  prelates  he  could 
reach,  partly  as  proof  to  Protestant  America  that  this 
was  a  purely  Catholic  movement  of  their  instigation,  but 
chiefly  to  hold  them  as  hostages  against  its  inipact ;  and 
in  March  alone  scores  of  priests  and  hundreds  of  laymen 
have  been  shot  or  hanged,  solely  as  a  terrorizing  meas¬ 
ure. 


41 


But  the  leaders  made  it  clear  that  the  revolution  was 
si)ecifically  a  national  movement  for  civil,  religious  and 
social  liberty,  born  not  in  Rome  but  in  Mexico,  and  Cath¬ 
olic  only  in  the  sense  that  the  Mexican  people  are  Cath¬ 
olic.  Petitions  for  freedom  of  worship  and  schools  and 
press  and  political  action,  signed  by  over  five  millions  of 
voting  age,  had  been  flouted  by  the  Calles  Chamber.  The 
people  must  have  voice,  and  unlike  former  revolutions  of 
political  and  military  adventurers  with  a  following,  this 
uprising  draws  its  power  and  resources  from  the  people 
themselves.  The  leaders  are  men  of  high  caliber,  neither 
politicians  nor  professional  .soldiers ;  but  with  growing 
volunteer  forces  and  regular  army  accretions,  they  ex¬ 
pect  to  weld  the  wide-spread  local  insurrections  into  one 
unified  movement,  and  gradually  but  soon,  establish  their 
government  firmly  in  all  Mexico,  and  with  very  little 
fighting.  This  prediction  seems  safe,  provided  the  Wash¬ 
ington  Government  sets  a  practical  if  not  formal  embar¬ 
go  against  munitions  to  the  Calles  faction.  That  its  refu¬ 
sal  to  renew  the  anti-smuggling  treaty  with  Mexico  points 
in  this  direction  was  noted  by.  Calles  who  at  once  made 
overtures  to  readjust  his  Constitution  to  the  satisfaction 
of  the  land  and  oil  interests  of  the  United  States.  It  was 
also  noted  bv  the  Mexican  Hierarchv,  who  have  issued  a 
statement  that  the  moral  and  religious  interests  of  the 
Mexican  people  are  still  more  exigent.  “The  religious 
conflict,”  they  insist,  “is  also  an  international  Cjuestion, 
since  it  deals  with  the  rights  of  lil)erty  of  conscience,  of 
worship,  of  association  and  of  the  press,  which  are  and 
should  be  the  heritage  of  all  peoples” ;  and  they  urge 
their  people  to  renew  their  previous  monster  petitions  for 
amendment  to  that  effect.  As  the  content  of  these  peti¬ 
tions  coincides  with  the  guarantees  demanded  by  the  U.  S. 
Sub-Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  as  the  basis  of  any 
acceptable  settlement,  their  administration  will  doubtless 
insist  on  their  acceptance,  should  it  continue  to  maintain 


42 


its  present  attitude  against  the  forces  of  compromise. 

Recognize  Countries  That  Recognize  Right 

Herein  lies  the  danger  for  the  present  and  the  future. 
The  Catholics  of  Mexico  seem  miraculously  to  have  risen 
above  the  allurements  of  compromise  which  invariably 
betrayed  them  in  the  past ;  but  such  an  evolution  is  not  so 
evident  in  the  United  States.  Though  the  active  inter¬ 
ests  working  for  compromise  with  Mexico  are  few  and 
mainly  motived  by  bigotry,  the  pacifists  and  neutrals  that 
give  them  potential  force  are  numerous,  perhaps  a  ma¬ 
jority.  President  Coolidge  expressed  surprise,  January 
23,  at  the  general  ignorance  of  and  indifference  to  the 
fundamental  questions  involved ;  and  the  same  day  Con¬ 
gressman  Gallivan  presented  a  resolution  to  Congress  re¬ 
questing  the  administration  to  furnish  detailed  informa¬ 
tion  on  Mexico’s  violations  of  various  American  rights, 
and  on  the  forms  and  methods  of  its  American  and  even 
Congressional  propaganda,  with  the  instruments  and  pay¬ 
masters  thereof,  employed  “to  alienate  the  American  peo¬ 
ple  from  support  of  their' administration.” 

This  information,  if  furnished,  will  enlighten  and  as¬ 
tonish  the  public,  and  doubtless  repress  the  indignation 
aroused  by  the  first  action  of  a  Washington  administra¬ 
tion  which,  though  motived  by  self-protection,  benefits  in¬ 
cidentally  the  Catholic  people  of  Mexico.  But  there  it 
will  stop,  if  those  who  have  brought  this  happy  change 
about  will  not  continue  their  enlightenment  and  civic  in¬ 
fluence  till  the  principles  of  fundamental  justice  become  a 
permanent  policy  in  our  dealings  with  the  South  Ameri¬ 
can  republics.  Since  the  days  of  John  Adams,  U.  S.  ad¬ 
ministrations  have  usually  favored  the  radical,  free-think¬ 
ing,  church-hating  minorities  who  seized  and  held  power 
by  armed  force.  The  lesson  the  present  administration 
has  learned  from  patronizing  such  a  faction  in  Mexico 
affords  solid  basis  for  the  demand  that  hereafter  we  ac- 


43 


cord  the  fullness  of  friendly  recognition  to  no  govern¬ 
ment  that  does  not  make  civil  and  religious  liberty  and 
justice  the  basis  of  its  laws. 

Make  Civic  Action  A  Religious  Duty 

The  Catholic  body  has  also  learned  a  lesson  in  the 
power  they  can  wield  when  they  demand  their  civic  rights 
imperatively  and  exercise  their  civic  duties  boldly.  This 
boldness  was  new  and  not  easily  excited.  Catholics  in 
English-speaking  countries  were  said,  in  civic  matters, 
to  possess  an  “inferiority  complex”,  the  enfeebling  leg¬ 
acy  of  persecution.  Many  tolerate  or  welcome  a  patroniz¬ 
ing  tolerance  and  shrink  from  demanding  equality  of 
rights.  They  are  affrighted,  even  when  their  religion  is 
assailed,  of  “bringing  religion  into  politics”,  whereas  the 
principles  of  religion  is  what  most  it  lacks,  and  because 
of  that  lack  the  Constitution,  which  is  the  main  buttress 
of  both  their  religious  and  civic  liberties,  is  in  danger  of 
crumbling.  Built  firmly  by  religious  minds  on  “the  law 
of  nature  and  of  nature’s  God”,  the  United  States  Consti¬ 
tution  can  be  vitalized  only  in  a  religious  people ;  and  four 
generations  of  religionless  schooling  have  so  sapped  their 
Christian  vigor  that  half  our  people  profess  no  religious 
belief.  If  the  Catholic  body  do  not  infuse  this  vitality 
civically  and  socially  into  the  laws  and  the  heart  of  the 
nation,  the  Constitution  must  fall  for  want  of  sustaining 
force,  and  along  with  it  Catholic  liberties  and  influ¬ 
ence.  They  seem  to  have  failed  to  sense  that  such 
civic  activity  is  a  religious  duty.  We  are  twenty 
millions,  almost  one-fifth  of  the  whole,  and  we  are  repre¬ 
sented  by  about  one-twentieth  of  the  governors  and  of 
the  Senators,  and  one-sixteenth  of  the  Congressmen ;  while 
of  four  successive  administrations  there  has  not  been  one 
Catholic  in  the  Cabinet,  which  determines  the  policies  of 
the  nation ;  not  one  to  arrest  the  dominance  of  selfish  in- 


44 


terests  over  international  justice  and  human  riglits  in 
Mexico  and  elsewhere. 

The  Mexican  crisis  has  fortunately  roused  them  from 
this  un-civic  and  neutral  attitude.  Inspired  by  the  key¬ 
note  of  the  Primate  of  Baltimore,  the  Knights  of  Colum¬ 
bus  have  moved  the  nation  to  reversal  of  a  perverse  na¬ 
tional  policy,  and  acquired  thereby  the  consciousness  both 
of  their  power  in  the  state  and  of  thei'-  civic  as  well  as  re¬ 
ligious  duty  to  exercise  it.  They  will  no  longer  permit 
selfish  expediency  to  eradicate  principle  nor  suffer  the 
Catholic  body  to  remain  a  cipher  in  national  affairs. 
They  are  in  the  way  of  rendering  also  important  inter¬ 
national  service.  They  are  now  engaged  in  a  comprehen¬ 
sive  history  of  the  United  States,  the  first  to  enlighten  the 
nation  on  the  proportionate  contribution  of  Catholics  to 
its  building.  Their  recent  study  has  brought  home  to 
them  the  general  ignorance  and  historical  defamation  of 
Catholic  services  and  social  conditions  in  all  South  Amer¬ 
ican  countries  as  in  Mexico,  and,  therefore,  the  pressing 
importance  of  supplementing  the  true  story  of  the  United 
States  by  adequate  histories  of  each  of  the  South  Ameri¬ 
can  peoples.  This  should  beget  a  progressive  betterment 
in  understanding  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  harmony  of 
international  feeling  and  policy,  and,  while  vitalizing  the 
United  States  Constitution  at  home,  should  extend  the 
essential  principles  of  this  soundest  and  wisest  of  demo¬ 
cratic  instruments  to  the  governing  policies  of  our 
southern  neighbors. 

The  solution  of  the  ^Mexican  crisis  is  in  the  future, 
but  its  developments  are  pregnant  with  hopeful  presage. 
It  has  stirred  the  Mexican  people  and  particularly  its 
nuanhood,  whose  religious  fervor  had  required  awaken¬ 
ing,  to  a  heroism  of  loyalty  to  their  Church  and  a  sacri¬ 
ficial  realization  of  their  civic  rights  and  duties  that  is 
bound  to  be  written  into  the  constitution  and  laws  of 
Mexico.  It  has  exhibited  the  character  of  the  long  de- 


45 


famed  Mexican  clergy  in  a  new  and  heroic  light.  It  has 
unified  and  vitalized  the  energies  of  American  Catholics, 
and  it  has  brought  the  whole  United  States  to  better  ap¬ 
preciation  of  the  Mexican  people,  and,  for  the  first  time, 
to  administrative  harmony  with  their  true  ideals  and  in¬ 
terests.  Whatever  its  other  consequences,  the  Mexican 
crisis  has  proved  a  blessing,  if  in  hard  disguise,  not  only 
to  the  Mexican  people,  but  to  all  the  people,  and  espe¬ 
cially  the  Catholics,  of  North  America. 


REFERENCES:  Mexico:  Crevelli,  Catholic  Encyc.; 
Cornyn,  The  Americana.  Historia  de  la  Iglesia  Mexicana, 
Cuevas.  Brevissima  Relacion,  Las  Casas.  Historia  Ec- 
clesia  Indiana  and  Coleccion,  Mendieta.  Awakening  of 
a  Nation,  Lummis.  Mexico  and  the  United  States,  Ro¬ 
mero.  Historia  de  Mejico,  Alaman.  Obras  Sueltas, 
.Mora.  Essay  on  the  Kingdom  of  Spain,  Von  Humboldt. 
Juarez  y  sus  Revoluciones,  Bulnes.  History  of  Mexico, 
H.  H.  Bancroft.  Pan-American  Bulletin,  1917-1919. 
Seward’s  Mexican  Policy,  Callahan.  United  States 
Treaties  and  Conventions,  Smith.  Mexico,  Enoch.  Latin- 
.4merican  Nations,  Robertson.  Book  of  Red  and  Yellow, 
Kelley.  Pastoral  Letter  U.  S.  Episcopate,  1926. 


46 


STATEMENT  OF  BISHOP  PASCUAL  DIAZ, 
EXILED  EXECUTIVE  OF  THE  MEXICAN 
HIERARCHY,  ADDRESSED  TO  THE 
AMERICAN  PEOPLE,  APRIL  7,  1927. 

“I  have  been  asked  if  I  think  there  is  any  possibility 
of  settling  the  disputes  between  your  country  and  the 
Calles  government  in  Mexico,  or  between  that  govern¬ 
ment  and  the  Catholic  Church.  A  single  consideration 
forces  me  to  answer  ‘No’  to  both  questions.  No  settle¬ 
ment  is  possible  between  any  right  thinking  people  and 
an  irresponsible  tyranny. 

“I  have  enjoyed  the  hospitality  of  your  great  country 
long  enough  to  know  how  clearly  and  rightly  your  people 
think ;  I  have  heard  enough  of  President  Coolidge  to  be¬ 
lieve  firmly  that  he  cannot  be  deceived  by  promises  that 
are  on  their  face  false. 

“The  Calles  government  does  not  represent  the  Mex¬ 
ican  people.  Your  people  will  never  make  friends  with 
the  Mexican  people  by  making  friends  with  the  tyranny 
that  oppresses  them.  Thousands  of  the  Mexican  people 
are  now  in  arms,  in  determined  rebellion  against  it.  Mil¬ 
lions,  literally,  are  outraged  by  its  actions,  silent  or  im¬ 
potent  only  because  the  government  of  Mexico  is  a  tyran¬ 
ny,  a  ruthless  tyranny,  with  all  the  means  of  repression 
in  its  blood-stained  hands. 

“Consider  for  a  moment  the  suggested  bases  of  settle¬ 
ment  of  the  disputes  between  that  government  and  the 
United  States.  The  Mexican  constitution,  so-called,  was 
never  submitted  to  or  approved  by  the  Mexican  people. 
It  is  only  a  loose  and  grandiose  expression  of  a  wild  po¬ 
litical  theory  set  up  by  a  selfish  oligarchy  to  give  color 
to  its  evil  deeds.  The  Calles  government,  under  color 
of  constitutional  enactment,  seized  the  property  rights 
of  your  nationals,  along  with  the  property  of  thousands 


47 


of  our  own  people.  They  were  bound  to  make  these 
seizures,  the  Calles  government  said,  by  this  so  sacred 
constitution  of  theirs.  Yet  now  it  is  suggested  that  the 
provisions  of  the  constitution  may  be  suspended  by  some 
device  or  other  in  order  to  meet  the  justified  demands 
of  the  United  States  and  its  injured  people. 

“Can  the  United  States  and  its  people  rely  on  a  sus¬ 
pension  of  the  so-called  constitutional  provisions  with  any 
more  surety  than  on  the  constitution  itself?  One  has 
only  to  state  the  question  to  reveal  the  ridiculous  charac¬ 
ter  of  the  whole  ingenious  series  of  suggestions  from 
Mexico  City. 

“The  so-called  constitution  itself  enunciates  a  doctrine 
of  thievery.  Until  that  doctrine  is  repudiated  at  its  base 
every  suggestion  of  settlement  must  rest  on  these  terms : 
‘Yes,  we  believe  in  thievery,  but  if  you  insist  upon  it 
strongly  enough  we  will  not  steal  your  properties  just 
now’. 

“By  all  too  bitter  experience  the  Church  in  Mexico 
knows  how  such  a  procedure  works  out.  Eager  only  to 
carry  on  its  work  of  spiritual  ministration  to  its  millions 
of  charges  and  anxious  to  avoid  trouble,  it  relied  on  the 
promises  of  this  and  that  politician  that  the  constitution 
and  laws  would  not  be  enforced  against  it.  Now  it  finds 
itself  and  its  people  in  a  position  where  compromise  is  no 
longer  possible. 

“The  Church  leads  no  armed  rebellion.  It  is,  for 
instance,  a  fantastic  falsehood  to  say  that  the  venerable 
Bishop  Orozco  y  Jiminez  is  in  the  field  at  the  head  of 
those  who  are  so  successfully  resisting  the  government  in 
Jalisco.  But  it  is  good  American  doctrine,  as  set  forth 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  as  it  is  good  Catho¬ 
lic  doctrine,  that  forcible  resistance  to  an  unjust  tyranny 
is  the  righteous  duty  of  the  citizen. 

“So  it  is  with  a  certain  pride  in  my  people,  despite  my 
pain  at  their  suffering  that,  wherever  I  go,  I  can  say  that 


48 


in  Mexico  they  are  true  to  the  right  and  that  they  are 
justifying  their  faith  in  the  blood  of  martyrs,  as  Chris¬ 
tians  did  in  the  early  days,  as  Americans  did  in  their 
early  days. 

“Americans  can  afford  to  be  patient.  The  Church 
can  afford  to  be  patient.  Eventually  right  will  triumph 
in  Mexico  as  it  always  triumphs.  It  will  not  triumph 
through  a  compromise  that  in  its  very  nature  bears  the 
germ  of  corruption.” 


Pamphlets  Published  by  The  I.  C.  T.  S. 


The  Sacrament  of  Penance,  Pacts  About  Confession, 
by  Rev.  Matthew  J,  W.  Smith. 

Divorce  and  Remarriage,  by  Rev.  William  PI.  Sullivan. 

Ways  to  Rome,  The  Reasoner’s  Way,  by  Rev,  J.  M. 
Prendergast,  S.J. 

The  Catholic  Chui*ch,  Her  Indefectibility  and  Pei-petu- 
ity»  by  Very  Rev.  M,  C.  Schumacher,  C.S..C.A, 

Freemasoni-y,  by  Lucian  Johnston. 

Law — ^Natural,  Divine,  Human,  by  Rt,  Rev.  Msgr. 
William  P.  McGinnis,  S.T.D. 

Doctrine  of  the  Church  on  Secret  Societies,  by  Rev. 
John  J.  Graham,  I.P.P.,  and  Secret  Societies — 
Old  and  Xew,  by  Rev.  William  B.  Hannon. 

Jouimeys  to  the  Catholic  Church  (No.  1)  In  Quest  of 
Faith,  by  Floyd  Keeler,  and  Why  I  Ami  a  Cath¬ 
olic,  by  John  Meyer. 

After  All  AVhat  Is  Law?  by  Lucian  Johnston. 

After  All  AVhat  Is  the  State?  by  Lucian  Johnston. 

Ci’ee<ls  and  Dogmas,  by  Thomas  F.  Coakley,  D.D. 

Miracles:  What  Are  They,  and  What  is  Their  Use?  by 
Rev.  John  Gmeiner. 

Six  Golden  Cords  of  a  Mother’s  Heart,  by  Rev.  Joseph 
O’Reilly. 

Objections  to  the  Chuifh,  by  Very  Rev.  William 
Hogan,  C.SS.R. 

The  Light  That  Shall  Not  Fail,  an  Interpretation  of 
The  Spiritual  Mission  of  America. 

Christian  Science,  by  John  E,  Graham. 

Price  of  the  above  pamphlets — five  cents  per  copy. 

Special  reduction  when  ordered  by  the  hundred. 

INTERNATIONAL  CATHOLIC  TRUTH  SOCIETY 

407  Bergen  Street,  Brookljni,  N.  Y. 


A  FEW  QUESTIONS 


Do  you  wish  to  become  familiar  with  the  history 
of  your  Church? 

Do  you  like  to  have  an  intelligent  interest  in  your 
Church? 

Do  you  Avish  your  love  to  your  Church  increased? 

Do  you  like  more  taste  for  good  reading? 

Would  you  like  to  have  your  zeal  for  the  Church 
quickened? 

I>o  you  wish  more  interest  in  the  cause  of  mis¬ 
sions? 

Would  you  like  to  have  a  guide  for  religious  think¬ 
ing  and  living? 

Do  you  wish  to  know  what  the  Church  is  doing? 

Do  you  Avish  to  become  a  well-informed  Catholic? 

Do  you  wish  to  know  how  to  do  best  the  work  of 
mercy? 

Do  you  wish  to  krioAV  hoAV  to  become  a  soul  winner? 

Do  you  like  to  see  benevolence  increased? 

Do  you  like  to  have  the  educational  institutions  of 
your  Church  prosper? 

liast — ^but  by  no  means  least:  Do  you  Avish  to  assist 
in  disseminating  the  Truth  concenxing  the  doc¬ 
trines,  history  and  practices  of  the  Catholic 
Church? 

If  you  do— then  Read,  Support  and  Increase  the  Cir¬ 
culation  of 

TRUTH 

The  OfiEicial  Organ  of  the 
INTEBNATIONAIi  CATHOLIC  TRUTH  SOCIETY 


